


What I Want

by LucyPryde



Series: Laurel and Cisco AUs [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Campy, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, blackvibe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:01:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 47,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4987585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyPryde/pseuds/LucyPryde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since The Incident, co-workers Laurel Lance and Cisco Ramon have maintained a healthy relationship full of hatred, spite, and forced workplace tolerance. Vibe and the Black Canary, however, are instantly attracted to one another upon their violent first meeting. Starring superhero campiness, Moira Queen as the worst boss ever, multiple pop culture references, and partial nudity in an elevator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Feels Like the First Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [2sassyformyowngood](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=2sassyformyowngood).



> Hello, fellow Flarrow fans. Can I just say that both of the new seasons are off to a great start? Especially The Flash. . . New Cisco moments made me so, so happy. I hope you're enjoying them, too :) 
> 
> This story was a prompt from 2sassyformyowngood. She basically gave me the idea to have Cisco and Laurel be coworkers who hate each other and for Vibe and Canary to keep saving one another until they fell in love. I don't think she expected it to snowball like this--it's looking like this fic is going to come in at 40K words or more, so that's exciting. 
> 
> Speaking of the lovely 2sassyformyowngood, you should head over to inkitt.com, use 2 seconds to make an account, and then search for her story, "Holding On and Letting Go." It's NCIS, it's wonderful, and liking it could help her win a writing contest. So get on that. Spread the love. 
> 
> Final announcement before we get to the good stuff: I'm on tumblr now. https://www.tumblr.com/blog/lucypryde if you're interested-- I reblog a lot of adorable LaurelxCisco, and might start posting teasers if that's something y'all would like. Just let me know. 
> 
> I hope my absence has been worth the wait. I'm excited to share this story with you.

“Laurie, I had such a great time tonight. I’m sure you did, too.”

Laurel resists the urge to stomp on her date’s foot as they leave the restaurant. To her great displeasure, he has been regaling her with stories of how he’s working on his eighth book while simultaneously inventing a new cancer treatment. She has gotten in two sentences all night, and one of them was, “Can we get some more breadsticks,please?”

“I’ll send a car to pick you up before the book signing on Thursday. I’ll have Sheila send over a dress and some sunglasses; the flashbulbs truly can be blinding at times,” he chuckles, slinging an arm around her shoulders. Her car is twenty feet away and she’s already itching to climb inside and see if her stereo will blast any and all residue of this horrible evening off of her skin.

An excited-looking blond is leaning against a lamppost at the edge of the parking lot. She’s pretending to text, but her fingers don’t even touch the screen. The he-man fondling Laurel’s shoulder blade doesn’t seem to notice until they are in earshot of the girl, whose false tan looks waxy and yellow beneath the incandescent bulb. “Carter Bowen!”

“That’s me,” he says with a smile, pulling a sharpie out of his suit pocket. “What do you want me to sign?”

Laurel takes this as her cue to make her great escape. He takes his arm off of her shoulder and she starts backing away. On any other night, she’d just tell him he’s an asshole, but she doesn’t want to have to deal with that from him tonight. She has a feeling that there are many, many layers to his ego, and that shattering the outer veneer would only result in him sending her flowers at work or something obnoxious like that. Her car is unlocked, her hand on the handle before he notices that she’s left.He jogs over to the car, and Laurel catches sight of the blond pulling her dress back up. _Well, that answers the question of what he signed_ , she thinks to herself with an eye roll.

“Laurie, are you trying to play coy? I’m not letting you leave without a goodnight kiss.”

Laurel lets out a deep sigh. So much for a quiet getaway. “Laurel, Carter. My name is Laurel. And you don’t ‘let’ me do anything. I choose who I give kisses to, and I choose what I wear to hypothetical book signings which I will not be attending. Have Sheila send the car for somebody else. I’m sure that Groupie Skank Barbie over there will be more than happy to attend with you. Goodnight. Don’t call, don’t text, don’t make an effort to contact me again unless you come up with a way to learn how to treat women like human beings.” Laurel opens the door, not caring that it slams against his leg, and slides into the driver’s seat. The doors are locked and the car is on before Carter can figure out what to say.

He settles on yelling “This is Armani!” while brushing imaginary dirt off of his pants leg.

It is at that moment that Laurel curses Moira Queen, her boss and the orchestrator of this blind date, with everything in her.

“Cocksucker,” Laurel mutters under her breath, turning on her satellite radio to a seventies and eighties pop/rock station as she speeds out of the parking lot. Her mother has always said that it is impossible to be mad when listening to the Village People, and Laurel has always found it to ring true. She’s almost home when she passes Carson’s Alley, a hot-spot for an underground gladiator-style fight club that they’ve never been able to break up due to lack of evidence. Everyone in the area knows what happens there, but nobody’s willing to testify because they’re terrified of the consequences. A car is blocking the entrance of the alley, a sure sign that they’re meeting tonight.

Laurel catches sight of the black duffel in her backseat and makes a snap decision. She parks on the street, turns off her car, and quickly becomes the Black Canary. Her staff is at home, but her police baton rests in the bottom of the duffel bag along with a couple of her favorite pistols—a Ruger 380 and a Walther 9mm. She slips the extra magazines into her belt, straps the guns to her thigh holsters, and carries the baton. She’s only planning surveillance, but she’s learned the hard way that you can never be too careful. The building to the right is an apartment building, and Laurel thanks her lucky stars that one of her old clients lives here. She knows enough about him that she’s sure she can con him into opening the door.

“Hello?” “Hi, Mr. . . Logan. Sorry to bother you—I’m just pushing buttons because I really need inside. I want to surprise my boyfriend in 3B with my new outfit. Can you buzz me up?”

“Sure thing, sugar.”

“Thanks so much! Jimmy’s gonna love it,” she chirps, trying to channel the attitude of the perky blond in the parking lot. She climbs the stairs to the second floor, finding a fire escape at the end of the hallway on the side of the building facing the alley. She unlocks the window and slips through quickly, crouching in the shadows as she takes in the action below. Usually, there are two people in the center of a ring of loudly-cheering gang members. Instead, she’s surprised to see fourteen men all converging on one figure in the center.

He’s wearing a kickass super suit, and she immediately knows who he is. His yellow shades and black vest give him away. She always keeps an ear to the city’s vigilante undercurrent, and this guy is quickly becoming famous for being really easy to work with and also ballsy as hell. She can see that the second part is true from the way he’s sending out shockwaves left and right, filling the air with so many popping sounds that it’s like the 4th of July. Still, he’s dodging bullets and fists fairly well, but she knows it’s only a matter of time before someone gets him.

She sees a guy—probably the ringleader from his swagger-filled posture—approach him from just under the fire escape, his gun drawn. It’s obvious that Vibe doesn’t see him coming. For the second time that night, Laurel makes a split-second decision. She jumps off of the fire escape, flipping in mid-air, and lands on her feet just in front of the criminal. She mentally thanks Felicity for her shock-absorbing boots before she straightens up and whacks his wrist with her baton, sending the gun flying out of his hand. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that it’s not good sportsmanship to shoot someone in the back?”

“Shit!” The thug clutches his wrist. It takes him a second before he looks up at her, and his expression changes when he sees her. He winks at her before he grins. “Hey, baby. It’s nice to see a girl who likes it rough.”

She smiles sweetly at him. “Very rough.” She stalks towards him, putting a little extra swing in her hips. She rakes her left hand down his chest before she swings the baton hard at his temple with her right.

He drops like a sack of potatoes, and she crouches to pick up his gun when a foot to her side sends her sprawling. She recovers fairly quickly only to look down the barrel of another crook’s gun. Her hand goes down to her thigh to draw her own gun, but the guy drops his gun before she can complete the move. She looks down to see that his feet are shaking uncontrollably, and she lets out a little laugh as Vibe knocks him over completely with a shockwave. He reaches out to pull her up, and she notices the corded muscle of his forearms.

“Quaking in his boots, huh?”

The remaining members of the ring are starting to converge on them, and she draws her Ruger as she catches sight of a big guy behind Vibe.

“Finally! My jokes are wasted on these idiots.”

“Don’t move,” she and Vibe say in unison. She squeezes off a round over his left shoulder while he sends a shockwave over her right shoulder that ruffles her hair and sends a shiver through her body. As one, they whirl around to stand back-to-back, and Laurel sees a guy on the ground with a knife in his hand. He was about to stab her, and she realizes that Vibe just saved her life before she sees another one of the guys drawing his gun and pointing it at her face. She shoots him in the kneecap before he can get his shot off, and delivers another round to his shoulder for good measure. He probably won’t die—someone’s already called the cops, she’s sure, after all of these shots.

 Laurel sees blue lights flickering off of the walls near the entrance to the alley. The remaining gladiators scatter. “That’s our cue,” she says to Vibe, running towards the fire escape and yanking the ladder down. They scramble up the ladder and through the window, slamming it shut behind them. Nobody’s in the hallway at this hour, and they exchange breathless grins before they start towards the stairwell.

“After you,” he says, opening the door.

“Polite,” she remarks. “Interesting quality in a vigilante.”

“We can’t all be dicks,” he returns with a grin. His white smile against golden brown skin thrills Laurel a hundred times more than any part of her date that night, and she finds herself mirroring his grin. They’ve paused on the landing between the first and second floors, and they freeze when the second-floor door opens.

Laurel glances up and sees old Mr. Logan toddling into the stairwell and she knows instantly how to get them out of this. She covers Vibe’s mouth with her own, pinning him up against the wall hungrily. “Jimmy,” she says the name breathily, just loud enough for Mr. Logan to hear.

“Honeybun,” he replies, and she resists the urge to release a snort of laughter.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’d have to say that if this is any indication, he likes your outfit just fine.”

She feigns shock and embarrassment, pulling back but gripping Vibe’s hand to sell it. “Oh my God! You must be Mr. Logan. Like, thanks so much. You totally helped me surprise him! You’re the bomb.”

Mr. Logan pushes up his wire-framed glasses and gives her a wink. “Anytime, sugar. You look familiar.”

“You’ve probably seen her in your dreams, old man,” Vibe drawls in, and Laurel gives him a cutting look.

“It’s alright. If I had a girl like you, I wouldn’t let creepy old men like me look at her, either. You two kids have fun.”

“We will,” Laurel replies. “Come on, Muffin.” She leads Vibe down the stairs at a run, and they exit through the door that leads to the opposite alley. They stop in the shadows, backs pressed against the wall, and he turns to look at her. She looks down at their hands, which are still joined. Neither of them make an effort to drop the other’s hand, and his is pleasantly warm and fits in hers well.

“Muffin?”

“Honeybun?”

“I panicked!”

Laurel laughs, throwing her head back against the wall and wincing as the laughter makes her side hurt. “Fair, I guess. I kind of sprung this whole teamwork thing on you.”

He shrugs. “I’m glad you did. I might be dead if it weren’t for you.” He lets out a chuckle. “The Flash is never going to believe that I was lucky enough to have the Black Canary save my ass tonight.”

“You know the Flash too?”

“It’s a small world,” he remarks.

“Tell him I say hello,” she says, remembering the awkwardness of the last time she saw the Flash. He’d saved her from an explosion, but at the cost of her previous costume due to the deadly combination of extreme friction and lycra. He’d seen her nearly naked, but at least her mask had remained intact.

 “I will. Thanks for saving him from scraping me off the pavement,”

“No problem, Vibe,” she tells him.

“Maybe I’ll get the chance to pay back the favor,” he replies.

His voice is low and husky, and Laurel is reminded of just how long it’s been. On impulse, she pulls him closer and plants a kiss on his cheek. “Count on it, Muffin.” She walks out of the alley, slides into her car, takes off her mask, and laughs for a good thirty seconds when “You Shook Me All Night Long” starts up on the radio

* * *

The next morning, Laurel shows up at work after popping some anti-inflammatories for the gigantic bruise covering her side. Luckily, she didn’t get any marks that her business suit can’t cover.

“Laurel, I’d been hoping to see you this morning. Did you handle the paperwork for the Bivolo case?”

“Of course, Moira,” she says sweetly, imagining all the ways she could shut this woman up. She has not forgiven her for the previous evening’s activities.

“Wasn’t your evening with Carter wonderful? He’s such an accomplished young man.”

Laurel clears her throat. “It was a nice gesture, but I—well, I just don’t deserve him.”

“I understand, dear. Carter is just so wonderful that he can make you feel inadequate, especially at your age.”

Laurel is still trying to figure out what the hell that means long after Moira has clicked her way down the hallway.

She just sighs and makes her way into her office, scowling at the door opposite hers. Laurel is admittedly not a woman of few enemies, but Francisco Ramon just may be the worst. She’d rather take on Harley Quinn than deal with him. That was saying a lot, as Harley Quinn was everything that Laurel hated about female stereotypes: dependent, clingy, and crazy as hell. Ramon was worse. Not only had there been the horrible evening she’d taken to calling The Incident, but there was his stupid smile, his stupid obsession with candy that resulted in a ton of sticky fingerprints on business reports, and the fact that he managed to get along with everyone else in the office except her. There is no commiseration via communal bitching, because _how could anyone possibly hate Cisco Ramon_? It is enough to make her coffee taste sour.

Sighing, she sits down at her desk and resigns herself to doing paperwork until her first client comes in at noon. Laurel loves working for Tempest, which is the official title of Moira Queen’s pet pro-bono project. Moira funds the whole project herself, which would be cause to like the woman if she weren’t so manipulative and horrid. Still, Laurel looks at each paycheck as a blessing because she knows that the money comes from Moira, not the people whom Laurel defends at no cost to them. Every two weeks, Laurel gets a slip of paper that says she is chipping away at the Queen family coffers, and that gives her a small measure of happiness. By the time she dies, she hopes to earn enough money to knock a zero off of Oliver Queen’s trust fund. It is never going to happen, but there is nothing wrong with dreaming. Sara calls her vindictive and ridiculous; Laurel calls it justice.

Laurel gets through two case files before she starts thinking about Vibe. His dimples and the warm, corded muscles of his forearms are certainly memorable, but the kiss is what she keeps replaying. The way that his body felt pressed against her and the hesitant, agonizingly pleasurable way he gently nipped her bottom lip make her feel warm just thinking about them. She needs a boyfriend, a cold shower, or a night all to herself.

A knock at her door startles Laurel, and she sits up straight and crosses her ankles like a lady in case it’s Moira. “Yes?”

The face on the other side of the door is the last one she wants to see. Ramon is wearing a green t-shirt with a cartoon-style picture of the Norse god Loki holding a bowl of cereal. The caption says “Mischievously Delicious,” and he has paired a white sport jacket and dress slacks with it as if that makes it okay for him to come to work dressed like 9-year-old. To top it all off, he’s wearing hipster glasses. “Lance, your sister’s here for lunch.”

“Ramon, I didn’t know the office had a new secretary. It suits you,” she says with a look that clearly says the opposite.

He pulls his glasses down his nose. “I didn’t know you had a thing for the naughty librarian look.”

Laurel makes a gagging sound. “It’s a chair day, then?” He nods, and she sighs as she puts her jacket on. “Thank you.” She will be polite, even if the words feel prickly in her mouth.

Ramon gives her one last look before he retreats into his own office, and there’s something about the way his eyes wash over her that sets Laurel on edge. She makes her way down the narrow hallway of Tempest to the lobby, where she finds Sara waiting. Laurel thinks it’s a travesty that a nonprofit legal defense office isn’t handicap accessible, but then again, Moira Queen isn’t exactly the most considerate of people. “Hey,” Laurel says, catching Sara in a quick hug. “Where’s Nyssa?”

“I see how it is. You only want me for my wife.”

Laurel shrugs. “You picked a good one."

"To answer your question, Ted’s out sick so she’s covering for me at the gym.”

Sara owns an unconventional gym. There’s a space for crazy cross-fitters, a swimming pool, several machines designed specifically to help those with disabilities exercise, and even a room of elliptical and treadmills for those weird people who actually enjoy cardio. Laurel usually sticks to the weight room.

“She dropped me off before she headed in to work. Come on. We’re going to be late, and you know how much that irritates Felicity, not that she’d ever say anything.”

Sara is right, and Laurel leads the way out of the law office. At least there’s a ramp, so Sara wheels herself out to the car with practiced ease. Laurel notices Sara’s high-heeled boots. “Wearing the fancy ones today?”

Sara has three sets of prosthetic legs courtesy of the generous settlement. She has a pair with blades on the bottom for running, a pair that she puts her usual tennis shoes or flats on, and her high heeled “sex legs” as she calls them. “I figure if I can’t bear weight on them today, I might as well just use them as fashion accessories.”

Laurel rolls her eyes but helps Sara into the passenger seat before folding her chair and sticking it in the trunk. They crank the radio, and Laurel can’t help but smile when Sara starts singing harmonies to “I Want You Back.” 

“Overachiever.”

“Tone deaf.”

They meet Felicity at a café and decide to eat outside. It’s a beautiful day, and they drink iced coffee and eat soup and sandwiches under the cover of an umbrella. It’s going to turn cold soon, and this is one of the last days in the period where it is neither summer nor autumn.

“So, how did your date go last night?” Felicity wiggles her eyebrows as she takes a sip of her caramel frappe.

“Horrible. Awful. Absolutely hideous.”

“That bad?”

Laurel gives them a dark look. “You know of Carter Bowen?”

“Of course. He’s releasing a new book on Thursday.”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “Well, he’s the most pretentious asshole I’ve ever had the displeasure to meet.”

“How so?”

Laurel delights them with the tale of misfortune that was her evening.

“He actually signed her tits? That’s hilarious!”

“Not funny, Sara. Not funny at all. He signed her tits. In front of me. I was halfway to the car, but it was still horrible.”

“Oliver told me that guy’s a douche,” Felicity comments, wincing even as the words come out of her mouth.

“Hey,” Sara says, reaching across the table to hold Felicity’s hand. “You can talk about Oliver. If he makes you happy, then I’m happy. Granted, his track record with Lance sisters isn’t the best, but your last name is hyphenated; there’s hope.”

Felicity laughs a little, but still looks horribly guilty.

“Look, Ollie and I were over a long time ago. Same for Sara. It’s not a huge deal. I still don’t trust him, and if you guys get married, your mother-in-law is going to be a real doozy.”

“Did you just use the term ‘doozy’?”

“Leave me alone. I had a rough night, and that wasn’t all of it.”

“But wait,” Sara mocks in a voice eerily reminiscent of the late Billy Mays, “there’s more.”

“Let’s just say that I put on my boots and met someone.” They all exchange a look and check the area for listeners. They are the only ones sitting outside.

“You could have just said that you Canary-fied yourself last night,” Felicity remarks. “You need a better code that ‘putting on your boots.’”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that. Anyway, I met Vibe.”

“Is that the one with the Fabio costume?”

“What are you talking about? No. It’s the one with the snappy comebacks and the great hair. Red, grey, black and yellow costume. Nice arms.”

“Ooh. Yeah, I know who you’re talking about,” Sara replies. “So. . . how did that go?”

“I found him in Carson’s Alley surrounded by fourteen fight club members. It was hectic.”

“And...?”

“…and I saved him from getting shot, he saved me from getting stabbed, we made out in a stairwell to escape with our identities intact.”

Felicity, a spoonful of soup halfway to her mouth, drops the spoon back into her bread bowl. “So you had two dates last night.”

“It wasn’t a date,” Laurel admits. She smiles a little when she thinks about Vibe’s infectious grin.

“But you wouldn’t mind if it was,” Sara finishes with a little smile. “Right?”

“Maybe. But who knows? I mean, what are the chances that I’m ever going to see him again? This isn’t a small city, and our patrol schedules might not even match up.”

“You should have gotten his number,” Felicity muses.

“Says the one who used to hang out on her fire escape in the hopes that the Arrow would swing by and ravish her.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Both Laurel and Sara make faces.

Laurel finishes the last bite of her sandwich. “Ew. Just ew. I have to get back to work. Do you want me to drop you off at the gym, Sara?”

“You go ahead. I’ll drop Sara by the gym. My gym clothes are in my backseat, anyway, and I could do with some treadmill time.”

“I’ll leave you guys to that. I’ll text you later.”

* * *

It has been over two weeks since she last saw Vibe, and Laurel is convinced that she will never see him again. She’s been patrolling as normal, refusing to widen her area or increase her patrols because she might just happen to run into him. The days of chasing boys were over the day she graduated high school, and Laurel will be damned if she’s ever going back to them. Instead, she decides to handle her frustration in healthier ways, such as kicking the crap out of the copier when it keeps crying for more toner after she’s already put the extra cartridge in. “You have got to be kidding me,” she grouses as she thumps a gentle kick to the side of the beast.

“Whoa, crazy. Slow down. I’ve heard of tough love, but you’re not getting anywhere with that approach.” Ramon walks into the copier room with grape lollipop in his hand and a quizzical expression.

“I don’t need this today, Ramon.”

“I don’t think that the copier needs this, either,” he mumbles, but approaches the copier and looks at the screen. He slides the lollipop into his mouth and pulls his hair back into a low ponytail with a hair-tie from his wrist. He presses a few buttons, frowns, and walks over to the power strip to unplug the thing completely. He opens the behemoth of a copier to look intently at its innards.

He’s so close to Laurel that she can feel his body heat as she stares over his shoulder. For a moment, she is reminded of the moments leading up to The Incident, but refuses to go down that road. Instead, she stares at his hands so she’ll be able to tell Moira exactly how Ramon broke the copier.

“There’s no hiding from me,” he says triumphantly as he runs his fingers over a tiny yellow wire.

Laurel is slightly impressed that he can speak so clearly around the candy in his mouth. “What is it?”

“The insulation is worn down right here on the edge. I think I have some electrical tape out in my car, but I really don’t want to have to find this wire again.” With his free hand, he fishes in his pocket until he pulls out a keyring with about eighteen keys and a Lego man attached to it. “Would you mind running out to my car to grab my toolbox? It should be on the right side of the trunk."

“Do I look like the fetching type?”

His mouth presses into a thin line, and he looks up at the ceiling as if he is saying a prayer before taking a deep breath. “Do you want to print your copies or not?”

“Fine,” she says, snatching the keys from his palm and ignoring the fact that she still feels a tiny spark.

Ramon’s car is what one would colloquially refer to as a “hot mess.” There are sodas in every cup-holder, and CDs cover the entire floor of the passenger seat. Laurel shudders, glad that she doesn’t have to open the cab. Instead, she pops the trunk, grateful that the key fob has a trunk button. She’d hate to have to find the actual key in the mess that is his keyring. His trunk is full, but surprisingly organized. He has reusable grocery bags, a duffle bag, a first aid kit, and a black toolbox. Laurel groans in surprise as she lifts it; it’s not that big—how did he fit that many heavy tools inside? She slams his trunk and stalks back into the building, finding him standing there in the same position. It’s almost like watching a medical drama, the way that his finger presses against the wire as if it’s a leaking artery. She sets his keys down next to the toolbox.

“Awesome. Could you open it and take the top layer out? There should be electrical tape in the bottom.”

Laurel lets out an audible sigh, but does as he asks. The toolbox itself is full of all of the usual suspects—hammer, wrenches, nails, pliers—but there are also tools in here Laurel has never seen in her life. She almost asks him about them, but she remembers The Incident and shuts her mouth. She stands up, close again so she can see what he’s doing. Her chin is almost on his shoulder. “How big of a piece do you need?”

“About three centimeters,” he says, and she peels off a little over an inch.

The tape is tough, and she automatically brings it to her mouth to rip the piece off. She holds the piece of tape on the end of her index finger, and he reaches up to take it. Laurel doesn’t know if she’s imagining it or not, but she could swear that his finger brushes hers for longer than is strictly necessary. “Yeah, that’s great,” he says, reaching in with both hands and delicately wrapping the tape around the place where the wire’s insulation is fraying. He smooths it one last time before he draws his hand back carefully and closes the copier.

Laurel walks over to plug the copier in again, and Ramon is waiting by the power button. He turns it on, and there is no annoying beeping noise. Laurel approaches the screen to see it displaying normal settings, and she lets out a sigh of relief.

“How many do you need?”

“Six,” she replies. “But I can do that.”

“Suit yourself.” He turns around, gathers his toolbox and keys, and starts walking through the doorway.

“Cisco?” He turns around quickly, and Laurel knows he’s surprised at her use of his first name. That hasn’t happened since before The Incident.

“Mmhmm?”

“Thank you. You aren’t completely useless.” The words burn, but Laurel Lance gives credit when credit is due.

He smiles at her, and it’s the one that she hates, with the dimples and the perfectly white teeth and the slight squinting of his eyes. “No problem, Lance. Just doing my civic duty.”

As he walks out of the room, Laurel has to keep a lid on her emotions. What the hell is this man doing to her?

 


	2. Beautiful Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Muffin and Honeybun: The Magic Continues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so pleased to see the response to the first chapter. Many thank-yous for all of the comments and kudos :) This chapter was one of my favorites to write, so I hope it will be really fun to read. Enjoy!

Laurel has nearly given up on seeing Vibe again. She sees a lot of clickbait articles about him online: “Family Gets Robbed by Neighbor. . . Then THIS Happens,” “He Vibrates Door Open, Family’s Life Changed Forever,” and (her personal favorite) “Dangerous Vigilante or Cat Lover? The One Picture the Cops Don’t Want You to See!” She knows most of these articles blow things out of proportion, but reading them makes her smile. It’s nice knowing he’s still out there doing good.

Venturing beneath the bridge in her Black Canary gear is a bit like venturing into a pit of vipers. The bridge—officially the Ted Kord Memorial Bridge—is a beautiful suspension bridge. Shiny and silvery on top, it doesn’t give any clue to what happens most nights in the dark space beneath it on the south bank. Laurel, unfortunately, knows what happens there and is powerless to stop it. This space is the Kord, where cast-out teenagers go to hock their wares. As most of them are penniless, “wares” mostly refers to their bodies, although Laurel has seen discarded spoons and needles here, too.

She comes here twice a month, buys an evening of time with one of the city’s wayward daughters or sons, and gives them dinner, a supermarket gift card, and a ride to a shelter. Some take her up on it and some don’t, but it makes Laurel feel better. In her wild teenage years, Sara used to come here for the sheer edginess of it, and it makes Laurel’s skin crawl to think that somebody’s little brother or sister is here in the shadows.

Usually, the place is scattered with barrel bonfires and the glow of a few stray smartphones. Tonight, something is wrong. The breeze from the river, cool and polluted, makes Laurel’s neck prickle with anxiety. A single electric lantern sits near the middle of the space; in its pale, unnatural light, Laurel can see two leather-jacketed men and a blond boy who can’t be more than fifteen. He is skinny and small, and tears are running down his cheeks. The gleam of a gun barrel catches her eye as one of the men runs it down the side of the boy’s face.

Laurel takes off quietly through the shadows. The rushing river covers the sounds of her movements. Gun in one hand and baton in the other, Laurel is only seconds away from knocking these men out of the way. The boy has seen her, but he looks down so his attackers won’t register his surprise. _Smart kid_ , Laurel thinks.She takes one step too close, and her shadow cuts across the pool of the lantern’s light. One of the men turns quickly, squeezing off a round mid-spin. It goes wide, and Laurel knocks the gun out of his hand before he can try to shoot again. She kicks it.

“Get out of here!” she tells the kid as the now-unarmed man swings at her. She ducks, but his partner catches her by the throat and pushes her against the damp, musty retaining wall keeping the earth from rushing under the bridge. He starts squeezing, and Laurel sweeps her arms out and down hard on his elbows, forcing them to bend. She draws him close and brings her knee up as hard as she can, and his fingers leave her throat as he clutches his groin and falls to the ground. She turns to take care of his partner only to hear the sound of a gunshot echoing off of retaining wall and the bridge above. She lets out a cry of pain and clutches her shoulder, reflexively dropping her baton in the process. Just a graze.

She pulls out her backup gun and points it at his head. “Did you know that women tend to be better at fine motor skills? It comes in handy when shooting,” she says conversationally.

His eyes widen, and she sees them flicker over her right shoulder before a fist comes down on her temple. She staggers, pain blooming across the entire right side of her head, and another gunshot sounds. She is unaware that she is falling until her head connects with the ground, and she feels footsteps coming towards her. She looks up to see the men standing over her, the one with the gun training it on her head.

Her gun is still in her hand, and she shakily trains it on the shooter, bracing herself to pull the trigger when both men are blasted backwards like they’ve been hit by an invisible car. A thunderous boom fills the air. Her hand can’t support the gun anymore, and it drops to the ground in relief.

“Please be okay,” says a familiar voice.

Laurel grins despite the pain in her head, her shoulder, and now her right thigh, which she realizes is the source of her fall. She looks up to see his concerned face, his shades gleaming in the lantern light.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she grits out as she tries to sit up. Dizziness sets in, and she rocks back onto her elbows.

“As great as it is to see you again, I think we should maybe just do lunch next time. It’s probably safer.”

Laurel laughs, and the smile she’s been thinking about for weeks spreads across Vibe’s face. He slides a hand under her shoulders, and she hisses as his other arm slips under her thighs as he lifts her. “Lunch, huh? In our masks? We’ll have to plan it during a comic convention so we don’t look suspicious.”

She feels him shrug as he starts carrying her out of the Kord. “Or we could just do a picnic on a rooftop or something. Discreet, fun, and totally hot in the world of superhero dating.”

She nods against his chest. “Of course. So hot.”

He starts up the stairs to bring them back to street level, and Laurel fights to contain her hisses of pain as each movement jostles her leg. She can feel blood dripping steadily down her leg and her shoulder, and her dizziness is getting worse.

“Everyone’s doing it,” Vibe continues, and Laurel smiles when she realizes that he must be trying to distract her from the pile of suck that is being shot.

“Oh?” “Of course. Hourman and Liberty Belle. Superman and that random chick that he keeps saving all the time. Hell, Killer Frost and Firestorm were spotted on a rooftop together last week.”

“How do you keep up with all of this?”

“TMZ is all-knowing,” he quips.

Laurel thinks again about the clickbait articles about him that she’s been reading. “I’m sure. I’m also sure that superheroes are not supposed to be the type to liberate cats from kill shelters and find them all homes.”

“How did you find out about that?”

“Internet, meet Vibe. Vibe, meet technology.”

“Just wait until we get back to my lair.”

“You have a lair? I would have thought you’d be more of a ‘wretched hive of scum and villainy’ type.”

“I grew up in Detroit, not Mos Eisley.”

They have reached the top of the stairs and have stopped outside a ridiculously cool car. It’s silver with black and red accents, and Laurel knows that it’s custom because she’s never seen another vehicle like it. Vibe opens the passenger door and carefully deposits her in the seat, clicking her seatbelt for her. “I can do that.”

“Not with that shoulder. Hold this on your leg,” he orders, and hands her a gauze pad that he has produced from the backseat. He runs around to get in the driver’s seat, and they are tearing down the street much faster than is legal.

“You’re going to get us pulled over.”

“I drive around in a car printed with my colors in a vigilante costume. If they had a problem with me, they would have stopped me by now,” he says mildly.

“That, and there’s a police radar built in as well as multiple angle cameras.” He points to a screen on the console, and sure enough, there are images of the surroundings of each side of the car. There’s even a camera on the roof.

“What’s that for?”

“You would be surprised by the number of idiots who think that climbing on top of your car is going to stop you,” he laughs. “It’s easier to throw them off once you see where they’re gripping.”

Laurel leans her head against the cool glass of the window, desperately wanting to close her eyes but knowing that she probably has a concussion and is losing blood pretty fast. The gauze is soaked through, and blood is gushing out between her fingers from her thigh wound. She thinks about Felicity, who is always manning the computers when she’s patrolling. They tried an earwig system and almost killed each other with constant bickering, so now Laurel has a phone specifically for Canary business, and she always reports to Felicity every half-hour. “Dammit.”

“What?”

“I forgot to report to my partner.”

“You have a _partner_?”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “My eyes and ears. My tech girl.” She works a hand into her jacket pocket and pulls the phone out, but her fingers are too shaky to make the call one-handed. She growls in frustration, but Vibe reaches over and takes the phone from her. “What are you doing?”

“Checking in,” he says simply, and plugs the phone into a wire coming out of the dash. He presses a button and then sets the phone in a little pocket in the dash, and Laurel hears ringing coming out of the speaker of the car for a split second before Felicity picks up.

“Canary, you have some explaining to do.” Laurel opens her mouth to reply, but Vibe beats her to it.

“She was a bit busy.”

“Who the hell are you? If you touch a single hair on her head, I will personally donate all of your money to charity, put you on the no-fly list, and make you a wanted man in sixteen countries.”

“Badass, then. Hi, I’m Vibe. Our mutual friend is injured and I’m going to take care of her. Canary, you want to say something to let her know you’re okay? I love charity, but I kind of need money for rent. And snacks.”

“It’s fine, Oracle,” she says, her speech slightly slurred. “Just a situation at the Kord. I’ll call later.”

“I can come get—wait, you’re with Vibe?”

“Yes. Goodbye.” Laurel reaches for the phone, but Vibe presses the end call button before she can. She’s glad; her hands are shaking fairly badly, and coldness is seeping through her body. “I think I’m going into shock,” she says mildly.

“Good to know. At least we’re here,” Vibe says, stopping the car. He gets out and jogs around to the other side to pull her into his arms again, and he carries her into a bakery with a closed sign on the door. They go around behind the counter and he opens what looks like an industrial-strength freezer. He carries her inside, but it’s not cold. He presses a series of numbers on a keypad, and then they are dropping.

_It’s an elevator_ , Laurel realizes. “Your cover is a bakery?” The place smells of butter and sugar and chocolate comfort.

He shrugs, wincing as she lets out a little cry of pain. “Sorry. But yeah. Nobody ever suspected cookies of hiding a vigilante, did they? Besides, cookies are delicious, and the business is more than a front. You should stop in and try the white chocolate macadamia nut ones sometime.”

Laurel just leans her head against his chest. They’re at his place now—surely just a little nap wouldn’t be a problem. The throb in her head starts to fade away as she leans into him, and her mind starts to drift into the space between sleep and wakefullness.

“Nope. You’re staying awake until I can at least assess the damage,” he tells her.

“No. Five minutes.”

“Not happening.”

“Yes.” They exit the elevator and he places her gently on a cold metal table. There are small red lights everywhere, creating a dim glow until he flicks a switch and the bright fluorescents come on. Laurel winces, but lies back.

“I know we haven’t had that picnic yet, but I’m going to take off your pants now.”

“At least buy me dinner,” she says sleepily, and she looks down to see that he is smiling as he removes her boots. He unbuckles her belts deftly before he slides the pants down. She lets out a scream as the material rakes over the wound in her thigh, and he winces. “

I’m sorry. Want some painkillers?”

Laurel shakes her head. She won’t go down that road. “Nope. I don’t like being out of control.”

“This is going to hurt like a bitch, then,” he tells her. “I’m really, really sorry.”

She presses her shoulder blades to the table, not wanting to watch what he is doing. She knows there is no exit wound, and there’s only one way this can end. She hears him put on some gloves and tear open a package before something cold feels like it is burning a pathway through her leg. Her back arches and blackness takes over.

* * *

 

She awakens as he is putting stitches in her shoulder. His face is set in deep concentration, and Laurel feels a tiny shock at the way her cheeks are growing warm from watching his teeth scrape over his full lower lip. The thread passing through her doesn’t even sting, and though there’s a horrible throb in her leg, it doesn’t hurt as badly as she had expected. “You gave me something,” she accuses.

“Lidocaine,” he says, although with a tone like that he might as well have said _chillax_.

“Nothing else?”

“I started an IV of fluids, but that’s all it is,” he reassures her. “They’re the best for hangovers—of the alcohol and of the asskicking variety.”

“You get many hangovers?”

“Sometimes,” he says, tying off a stitch. “When your best friend metabolizes alcohol faster than it can affect him, sometimes you forget and try to keep up.”

Laurel laughs. “I don’t miss hangovers.”

“You don’t drink?”

“Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry for bringing it up, then. Super insensitive. That’s my other power.”

“You didn’t know,” she says. She catches her reflection in his glasses, and winces at how she looks. She’s dreamed of meeting this guy again, and when she finally does, she’s not wearing pants and is as pale as a glass of milk.

"Sorry,” he says again.

“Not that. Your shades are reflective, and I’m definitely a hot mess right now.”

He smiles, a softer smile than his usual grin. “You’re perfect. And even if you have bought a ticket to the Hot Mess Express, welcome aboard. I’ll be your conductor.”

“You have a fully fleshed-out lair inside a shell bakery and, I’m assuming, a day job. You seem pretty put together to me.”

“Tell that to my mom. And my grandma. And my brothers. Oh, and my bitchy coworker and my boss, too.” He shudders.

“You also work for a soulless demon?”

“You could call her that. She’s very. . . Motherly. In the Mrs. Bates kind of way.”

Laurel laughs, cringing as the motion shakes her body. “God, that hurts.”

Vibe clips the edge of the thread and sets the needle down. “Well, I’m finished with that, so that’s good. I pulled a .38 out of your leg and stitched it up, plus that graze. You have a hell of a lump on your head, and a bruise on the side of your face, but you should be able to cover that with makeup.” Vibe smooths a bandage over her shoulder. He cleans the area and snaps off his bloody gloves, washing his hands in the sink towards the edge of the room.

 

“Excellent,” Laurel groans. “Why can’t I just call in ‘vigilante’ to work?”

“I don’t know,” he says thoughtfully as he dries his hands. “There are enough of us in the city. Maybe we should form a union.”

“That will go over well. I can see it now— the bad guys will probably form one of their own and strike until they have healthcare benefits.”

“#VillainsArePeopleToo,” he says as he sits down on a stool next to the table.

“#IWouldKillForDental.” Laurel imagines that his eyes are twinkling behind the shades, and she has the urge to reach up and slide them off of his face. _Slow down, crazy. You haven’t even been on one date_. She holds out her hand and wonders if he’ll take it for a terrifying moment. When he does, she smiles. “Vibe?”

“Yes, Canary?”

“Thank you.”

He rubs a circle on the top of her hand with his thumb. “You’re welcome. I was afraid that I’d lost you for a minute there. Seeing you on the ground like that. . . Well, it’s not one of my favorite moments with you.”

A machine beeps, and Vibe carefully slides the IV needle out of the back of her hand. He presses a piece of gauze to the tiny wound and makes her hold it while he searches for a band-aid. When he has finished applying it, Laurel looks down to see the green Power Ranger decorating her skin.

She gives him a small smile. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good. Because you have a mild concussion, and I’m going to wake you up every two hours tonight.”

She groans. “I can go home. You’re probably exhausted.”

 

“I am,” he admits, “but the Black Canary is in my ‘hive’ as you called it— Ohh. The Vibe Hive, that is _good_ —and that’s everything.” He ducks his head and scratches the back of his neck. “I mean, I’m happy to be here with you.”

“If I had known you were this awesome, I would have saved your ass in an alley years ago.”

“’Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.’”

Laurel almost bows to his sage wisdom and goes along with the cheesy line until she places it. “You did not just quote _Kung-Fu Panda_.”

“It’s a classic! And you recognized it.”

“That’s besides the point. If I’m going to stay here, I need to call my partner.”

He hands her the Canary phone. “You do that. I’m going to go set up sleeping areas for us.”

Felicity teases her mercilessly, but the conversation is peppered with “I was so worried”s and “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do”s that Laurel doesn’t take it to heart. “You’re coming home tomorrow, or I’m going to track down Vibe’s hovel and pull you out of there myself.”

“It’s not a hovel. It’s a hive.”

“The Vibe Hive? I like it. Nice assonance there. Ooh, are you enjoying _his_ ass—”

“—Okay, nerd. Goodnight. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Buzzkill.”

Vibe walks over to Laurel and hands her a soft, oversized t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts with little cartoon tigers all over them. “I thought you might need something to sleep in.”

She thanks him before she realizes that she needs help getting into them. “Could you. . . ?”

“Yeah, of course.” He helps her fit her injured arm into the sleeve of the t-shirt, and Laurel shivers when his fingers run down her sides. It feels so good, and it’s been so long. Putting the boxers on is decidedly not sexy, but at least she’s not in just her bra and underwear now. He brings her a drink of water and carries her to the bathroom. He even gives her an extra toothbrush before setting her down on the toilet and leaving her alone.

Laurel laughs when she sees her reflection in the mirror. “I’m wearing tiger boxers, a gigantic S.T.A.R. Labs t-shirt, and my mask and wig,” she calls. "Too bad it's not fashion week."

“Hey, I’m sleeping in my shades and some flannel pajama bottoms and a Pac Man shirt. There’s no judgment here.”

When she’s finished, he helps her slip between the blankets of a fold-out sofa. Laurel smiles when she sees the Death Star on the top blanket. There’s a tiny cot set up next to the sofa bed, and she frowns. She knows she’s moving fast, and she knows that every time she’s ever loved a man, it has ended in heartbreak. But his smile and the way he makes that t-shirt look good in a way that lesser men (like Ramon, who also has that t-shirt) would envy inspires the words to come tripping out of her mouth.

“It’s big enough for two, you know.”

“I didn’t want to . . . You know. Make you uncomfortable or anything.”

“Vibe, you dug a bullet out of my leg, stitched me up, and now I’m wearing your boxers. I just used your toothpaste. I think we can share the bed . We’re there.”

“We are?”

“Not _there_ , at least not with this bum leg, but there.”

“Yeah. If you’re fine with it, then sure.” She pats the space next to her.

“Come on, cat rescuer. Do your worst.” He grins at her, slides between the sheets, and sets an alarm for two hours from then before he turns out the light.

Every two hours, he wakes her up. They are always tangled in some ridiculous position, most often with her legs wrapped up in his and her hand on his chest. The first two times, it was awkward. After that, it became comfortable, and in her drowsy state, she feels no shame in snuggling into his side and breathing in his scent.

* * *

He fetches coffee and chocolate-filled croissants for breakfast, and they lazily eat on the sofa bed still under the covers. He likes to quiz her on fellow heroes, finding out her opinion on each one.

“Arrow.” He takes a long sip of coffee as he waits for her to finish her bite of breakfast pastry.

“As a hero? As a person?”

“You know who he is?” Vibe sounds like an excited puppy, and Laurel rolls her eyes.

“I have a complex relationship with his real-world identity. It’s messy.”

“Messy as in . . .”

“Oh, God! No. Not anymore. He’s dating my partner. Like I said, it’s messy.”

“Point taken. As a hero, what do you think?”

“He’s a good guy. I know he’d have my back, and he does good things for the city.”

“Fair enough. Arsenal?”

“A riot. Scrappy and fun. The real kid brother type, you know?”

“Batman.”

“Stop trying to trip me up. You know he’s just a comic book character.”

“Every legend is rooted in truth,” he says wistfully. “And he’s super cool and has awesome connections. The bat signal? Genius. Why don’t we have those?”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “Because we have cell phones, and because it’s useless during daylight hours.”

“Fun-sucker. Superman?”

“Too perfect. I met him once and I felt completely unnecessary.”

“Green Lantern?”

“Weird. Just weird.” Laurel sets down her empty coffee cup and whimpers a little as she stretches.

“Would you take some ibuprofen if I gave it to you?”

“Sure,” she sighs. “I just stay away from anything that’s going to make me feel different, you know?”

“Fair enough.” He slides out of bed and returns with three pills and a glass of water.

She swallows them down and leans back against the pillows. “Come back to bed,” she says, and he slides back into the cocoon of warmth with her. She sighs happily.

“What was that about?”

“I just. . . This is perfect.”

“It would be better if you hadn’t been shot, but yeah, it’s kind of awesome.”

“Hey, me being shot might have been the only way we would have met again.”

“Then I guess I should give you my number, just in case you need help. Or want to set up lunch or something.”

“Give me your phone. We’ll exchange.” As she scrolls through his contacts, she realizes that this is his “business” number, too. The Flash, Firestorm, the Arrow, and even Killer Frost are all in his phone. She doesn’t question it; she’s been known to partner with a bad guy when something was really important. The number that makes her raise her eyebrows is listed under “I Ain’t Sayin She’s a Gold Digger.”

He finishes tapping his number into her phone and winces at the look on her face. “Oh, that. I kind of dated Golden Glider for fifteen seconds before she and her brother kidnapped me. They tried to get me to tell them who The Flash is, but it didn’t end well for them.” His eyes flicker to his wall of glass cases, one of which holds a spare uniform for The Flash.

“Okay, so you and The Flash are in a bromance. Fair enough, but why is she in your phone?”

“Are you jealous?”

“No.”

“Black Canary is jealous. You are so _cute_.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t. She’s in there because she’s the only one of the Rogues who ever actually answers her phone, and on occasion, we’ve been known to need their help to defeat a common enemy.”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Laurel mutters it under her breath, but Vibe hears her and starts laughing.

“Give me that.” He takes his phone from her hands, and types rapidly for a few minutes. “Better?” He hands the phone back. All of his superhero friends are still in there, but “I Ain’t Sayin’ She’s a Gold Digger” is gone, and Laurel is no longer under Black Canary. Instead, her number is under “You’re The One That I Want.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to,” he says. He leans in, and she meets him halfway. For almost a month, Laurel has told herself that she was just building up the kiss in her mind. This moment proves that she was lying to herself. It is gentle, lazy, soft and warm, and yet when she pulls away, she still feels as boneless as she did the first time they kissed.

“We've still got it, Muffin,” she says teasingly as they come up for air.

“Oh, Honeybun, was there ever a question?”

* * *

 

Felicity’s incessant text messages and Vibe’s real life responsibilities eventually burst their bubble. He drives Laurel to a parking lot in front of an abandoned machine shop where Felicity is already waiting.

Felicity is wearing one of Laurel’s masks and a large hoodie to protect her identity, and she leans against her car with impatient hands on her hips. 

Vibe helps Laurel out of her seat, and she wraps an arm around his shoulder as she limps toward Felicity, who rushes forward and catches her in a hug. Felicity pulls back, examining Laurel carefully. She nods when she realizes that her step-sister is mostly in one piece.

“See? Totally not a kidnapper,” he says. “You must be Oracle.”

“I’m still not convinced. Well, I kind of am—she’s wearing tiger boxers, and what kind of kidnapper has tiger boxers? I assume they’re yours. That’s a hell of an outfit, Canary.”

“They were. I don’t know if I’m getting them back,” Vibe says with a smile.

“You’re not,” Laurel replies. “And I like this outfit. It’s comfy.”

“It needs bunny slippers for the full effect,” Felicity quips.

“And to think that I didn’t loan you mine,” Vibe says, snapping his fingers. “Next time.”

“Next time,” Laurel agrees. He takes his arm off of her shoulder carefully. She wobbles a bit, but recovers quickly. Felicity stands so close to her that it’s like she’s expecting a surprise trust fall, and Laurel smiles a little at how neurotically protective Felicity can be sometimes.

Vibe leans forward and kisses her forehead. “I’ll see you later.” He extends a hand to Felicity. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Felicity shakes his hand firmly. “I can know your credit score in less than three minutes if I really need to. I can destroy it in half of that time.”

Vibe grins. “Good luck. Cash only for superhero business, Oracle.”

She narrows her eyes. “What are you hiding?”

He holds out a hand and starts ticking things off on his fingers. “A secret identity, my friends’ secret identities, the fact that it wasn’t the wind that broke my mother’s favorite vase when I was seven, and the perfect recipe for homemade enchiladas.”

Felicity blinks at him, and Laurel laughs.

“Oracle, have you met your match?”

“No, but you might have. Let’s go. It was nice to meet you, Vibe.”

He nods at her, smiles one more time at Laurel, and starts walking to his car. Laurel and Felicity are about to turn around when he spins and makes the sign for “call me.”

“Dork,” Laurel calls, but gets into the car with Felicity’s help. She turns to Felicity to tell her about Vibe, but Felicity holds up a hand.

“I’m under strict orders to take you straight to Sara and Nyssa, so that they may also partake of the glorious gossip that’s about to happen.”

* * *

Laurel’s sisters aren’t completely horrible people, she reflects as she lounges on Sara and Nyssa’s couch. The second they got in the door, the true fussing began. Pillows, a blanket, and some of Nyssa’s “special” herbal tea were given in rapid succession, and as Laurel relaxes against the cushions, she wonders if all of these herbs are strictly legal. Her leg hurts, but she feels light and warm. A smile spreads across her face, and Felicity, who has taken a spot at her feet, grins.

“She’s ready.”

Nyssa sits in a recliner while Sara is on the floor painting Nyssa’s toenails a pretty maroon. Nyssa always says that she never used to wear toenail polish until she met Sara, and Sara won’t stop painting her nails because she misses having toenails of her own to paint. It’s so cute that it makes Laurel feel nauseated.

Sara turns towards Laurel with a predatory grin. “Excellent.”

Laurel pulls a face. “What do you want to know?”

The questions flow from both Sara and Felicity, while Nyssa just listens and smiles. Soon enough, Laurel has recounted the entire story, from setting foot under the Kord to Vibe’s meeting with Felicity.

“He’s cute,” Felicity says. “And kind of a smartass, but he’s a sweetie.”

“He stitched your wounds and you enjoyed breakfast in bed. It sounds like you’ve been reading Donna’s Harlequin Romances again,” Sara snickers.

“He has the long hair thing going on like the guys from those books. Not that I’ve seen it down. Have you seen it down? Does it blow majestically in the breeze?”

“Felicity!”

“It seems like it would.”

Laurel heaves a sigh. “No, I haven’t. We haven’t even taken our masks off. We’ve not even been on a real date.”

“In your line of work, that’s totally two dates,” Sara comments. “You’ve got one more and then. . .” She mimes swinging a baseball bat and makes a clicking noise.

“Home run!” Sara and Felicity chorus together.

“I don’t want to build this up to be bigger than it is.”

“Judging by those pants he was wearing, there will be no disappointments when it comes to sizing.”

“Felicity!”

“What? Just saying. Hero pants are the best thing since baseball pants. It’s a fact.”

“I can’t take you anywhere.”

“Which is why I took you here. Because you can’t drive since you got shot.”

“I’m fine. I’ll have to be fine by Monday, anyway. I can’t take another sick day, and Moira isn’t exactly forgiving.”

“What’s she going to do? Shoot you for your insubordination?”

“Hey, she did it to Ollie that one time. It could happen,” Sara interjects slyly. She has always hated Moira Queen.

“She didn’t know he was her son. It was kind of self-defense, or at least that’s how he tells it,” Felicity defends.

“Whatever. Anyway, it’s fine. I sit behind a desk a lot, and Moira has me doing a lot of paperwork since I lost the Summers case.”

“Well, I wish I could make lunch this week, but we have plans.” Sara is practically glowing.

“I was going to cancel, too. Oliver’s planning an attack on some big-wig hacker, and he’ll need me. But plans. You have plans?” Nyssa and Sara share a smile, and Sara nods to Nyssa, who sits up a bit straighter.

“I have my first ultrasound.” There is a breath of silence before Felicity and Laurel begin congratulating the couple and squealing about being aunties. They talk over each other, but the smiles in the room are enormous.

“That’s so great! So. . . How?”

Sara gives a lazy smile. “IVF. My eggs, Roy’s sperm, her oven.”

“Roy? Really? Roy? Are you _sure_?” Felicity stares at Sara and Nyssa as if they are lab specimens.

Sara winks. “If not, it’s a little late.”

Laurel laughs. “How does Thea feel about this?”

Sara grins. “She volunteered him. And I quote, ‘Someone needs to use those swimmers, and God knows we’re not going to for the next eight to ten years minimum. Regardless of our future decisions, the cheekbones must survive.’”

“Wow. And Roy was just cool with it?”

“He made us promise that he could be the godfather and have a free gym membership for life.”

“Wow. That’s . . . Wow.”

“It’s wonderful,” Nyssa says, and Laurel can honestly say she has never seen her this happy.

“So does this mean that you’re hanging up the knives, swords, and other weapons for a while?”’ Felicity reaches into the candy dish on the coffee table and pops a caramel into her mouth.

“Of course. There’s no real need for my expertise here anymore. This city is overrun with heroes, and I think it will be nice to just live for a while.”

“I’m happy for you,” Laurel says, “And I am totally going to spoil that kid rotten. I take it we’re keeping things on the DL from Mom, Donna and Dad?”

Nyssa and Sara nod together. “Your father especially. At least until I’m a little farther along,” Nyssa says. “It won’t do to get his hopes up prematurely.”

“He is going to be so excited,” Felicity says. “He’ll be the most badass grandfather ever. ‘That’s _Captain Grandpa_ to you, kid.’” They all dissolve into laughter. Laurel feels a prickle in her spine that everything is going too well.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To quote Snape from AVPM, "And can anyone tell me what foreshadowing is?"  
> As far as a posting schedule goes, you can expect the next chapter on or around Sunday. I'm thinking of doing 2 chapters per week on a Sunday/Wednesday sort of thing, but it really just depends on how life goes. Teasers will happen in between on my tumblr, so if you like to be teased, you've found the right writer ;) Comments and kudos are always lovely.


	3. It's Raining Men (Hallelujah)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You lovely people amaze me. Your comments, kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions and responses to the tumblr teasers make me one very happy camper. I had considered splitting this chapter in half, but then I thought "Hell no. These people deserve a nice long chapter." So I hope you enjoy It's Raining Men (Hallelujah), chapter 3 of What I Want.

Recovering from her gunshot wound on the go is not fun. A month later, Laurel finds that it still twinges from time to time, especially when there’s a storm brewing. As if the aches weren’t enough, it’s almost as if Moira can smell weakness, and like a child poking a wounded animal with a stick, she is relentless. Laurel’s caseload over the past four weeks has been ridiculous. Tonight of all nights, Moira drops by Laurel’s office to tell her that she and Ramon are teaming up on the Criss case, which is one of the most important cases of the year. Laurel’s thigh is particularly achy tonight, and she is so ready to go home and run a hot bath and maybe call Vibe. They’ve moved on from texting to calling when they’re not saving each other’s asses on an almost weekly basis, and Laurel always smiles when she hears his voice.

“I know you two have some . . . Friction, but this case could bring in a great amount of funding, and you two are the best here at Tempest. You understand, don’t you, Laurel?”

“Of course, Moira.”

“It is great to see you two setting aside your differences. I don’t know what happened between you, but don’t you think it’s time to bury the hatchet?”

 _Absolutely, Moira. In your eye socket_. “Possibly. Thank you for stopping by in person, Moira. If you’ll excuse me, I need to finish this paperwork.”

“Actually, I was hoping that you two could look over the police report and these statements tonight before you interview your client tomorrow. It’s always great to have a prior working knowledge of the case.” She slides a folder onto the massive pile already on Laurel’s desk.

Laurel glances at the clock. It’s already six, and she sighs. It looks like the Chinese food flier in her desk drawer will once again save her.

“Sure.”

“Excellent. You two have a great night!”

As soon as the door closes, Laurel angrily shoves the folder off of her desk and places a hand on her forehead. She shouldn’t let this get to her, but she was _really_ looking forward to that bath and phone call. Her Canary phone beeps, and she makes sure that Moira shut her door before she works it out of her pocket.

 **Hey, gorgeous. I can** **’t talk tonight until late. I’m sorry. The Dragon Lady hates me** —Vibe.

They’ve taken to commiserating with each other about their horrible bosses. His might be even worse than hers from the stories he’s told her.

 **Hey :) Well, at least I didn** **’t have to be the one to cancel. The D.I.P. has me working overtime, too** —Canary.

 **D.I.P.?** —Vibe.

 **Devil In Prada** —Canary.

Laurel stands up and gathers the folder and its various contents up. Her phone beeps, but she puts the items back in order first. The last thing she needs is for Ramon to make some crack about her organizational skills.

 **Ah. Well, that sucks. Gird your loins—** Vibe ** _._**

Laurel can’t contain the loud snort and laugh that comes out of her. As if the image of Stanley Tucci preparing for the arrival of Meryl Streep  weren’t enough to make her laugh, she just imagined Vibe in all of his heroic glory drinking a beer and watching _The Devil Wears Prada_.

 **Stanley Tucci. Sexy** _.—_ Canary

 **Very sexy. Second only to Nicholas Cage. I** **’ll leave you with that glorious image until we speak again.** —Vibe.

Laurel laughs loudly again as she types out her goodnight text. The others in the office are going to think she’s an imbecile.

As if on cue, a knock sounds at the door.

“Intrude,” she says, knowing that it’s Ramon.

He comes in wearing a grey Henley and some jeans.

She almost feels sorry for him—he looks worn out and ready to be anywhere else but here. She shakes off the sympathy; this is _Ramon_. “Confused your days? It’s not Casual Friday.”

“I must have,” he says with too much sweetness, “because you are obviously celebrating Stick-Up-Your-Ass Saturday.”

Laurel bristles, but gestures to the chair in front of her desk. “I find it helps with posture,” she says primly. “Please, have a seat. The sooner we discuss the case, the sooner we can be away from each other.”

“Good plan,” he agrees, taking his own copy of the file out from under his arm.

“So, Shonda Criss is being prosecuted for murder. The surveillance tapes show a figure of roughly her height and build walking into the convenience store, and when the clerk refuses to give her the money in the drawer, she shoots him.”

“But there aren’t any shots of her face, and she claims that she was on a bus at the time, although nobody can corroborate her story.”

“I believe her,” Laurel says, looking up from the file and finding herself meeting Ramon’s eyes. They are warm, brown and expressive. It is these eyes that drew her in, that caused her to put herself in the situation where The Incident occurred. She slams her gaze back to the folder.

“Why?”

“Don’t you read? She’s an A student who is a member of eight extra-curricular organizations on track for early graduation. She’s on full scholarship, and she’s got a job lined up starting after graduation. Why would she rob a 7/11?”

“That’s a good point, but why can’t anyone confirm that she was on the bus?”

“Have you been on public transit lately? The goal is to play as many rounds of Candy Crush as you can while simultaneously ignoring everyone else around you.”

“That’s why I drive,” he says. “Okay, so where did she get off the bus? We can start there.”

 They toss ideas back and forth for the next several hours, and by the time they have completely discussed the police report and its contents and have formulated a plan of action, it is almost eleven.

“So, I guess we’ll go visit Shonda tomorrow. Hopefully we can get the last bit of information to prove how ridiculous these accusations are.”

“I hope so,” Laurel replies, standing up. Her knee buckles, and she almost falls face-first onto the desk. She catches herself with her hands and breathes through the ache in her leg.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“Foot’s asleep,” she grits out.

He raises an eyebrow. “Then why are you rubbing your thigh?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Ramon.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it. A second later, he opens it again. “Look, I know that we’re not exactly besties, but if someone’s hurting you, that’s not okay.”

Laurel freezes. His eyes are so earnest and sad that for a moment, he reverts to being Cisco, the guy who made her laugh and brought her blueberry muffins for breakfast most mornings. “I. . . It’s nothing like that, which is exactly what a lot of victims of domestic violence would say, but it’s not. I’m single, Ramon. There’s nobody _to_ beat me.” Briefly, Laurel wonders if she _is_ single. In the superhero world, how many times do you save each other before it’s considered dating?

“It’s not always a partner,” he says darkly. “Just. . . If you need someone to talk to, I’m here. I know that you hate me more than possibly anyone else on the face of the planet. Hell, you’re not exactly the sweetest cupcake in the box, either. But if anyone is hurting you, it needs to stop. Tell me, and I’ll help.”

Laurel nods. “Sometimes, you’re not the cretin I think you are, Ramon.”

“Sometimes, you’re less of a stone-cold bitch than usual.”

They share tiny smiles and curt nods before they part ways.

 

* * *

 

The second she walks in her door, Laurel pulls out her Canary phone and calls Vibe.

“Hey, you.” His voice sounds sleepy.

“Did I wake you up? I am so sorry!”

“Hey, it’s fine. I’ve just been patrolling a lot, and the Dragon Lady has me going full time. I got home and just crashed on my couch.”

“I can understand that. You aren’t going to believe it. The D.I.P. made me work with the _worst_ of my coworkers tonight.”

“I hate group work,” he says with a yawn.

“Me too. This guy is just. . . He’s horrible. Unprofessional and rude, and he did something really mean about a year ago that I haven’t forgiven him for. But today, he was actually kind of nice, in an asshole kind of way.”

“Do I have competition?”

“Now who’s jealous?”

“I’m not jealous! Okay, so maybe I’m jealous that he gets to see you every day. It’s been a week. I’m dying.”

Laurel grins, pulling off her shoes and shimmying out of her clothes. “Does it make you feel any better that I’m just in my bra and underwear right now?”

He groans. “Dying. _Dying._ ”

She laughs. “Are you free Sunday afternoon?”

“I should be. Unless there’s business, you know.”

“Of course. That’s a given. I was thinking rooftop picnic. You pick the rooftop and I’ll bring the picnic?”

“Sounds good to me. God, it’s good to hear your voice but I’m—”

“—dying. You should go to sleep. I’m going to. I usually sleep naked.”

He makes a horrible noise. “You hear that? That is literally my death rattle.”

“Slipping between the sheets. They’re mint green Egyptian cotton--” she says in a sultry tone.

“You are the devil.”

“Nope. I’m just one of her minions.”

“The sexiest of minions.”

“Are you comparing me to Nicholas Cage?”

He laughs. “No. Sorry. You’ve got nothing on him.”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “Well, you’re right about one thing: I’ve got nothing on.”

He lets out an odd-sounding squawk. “Goodnight, she-demon.”

“Goodnight, Vibe. I hope you sleep good and _hard_.”

She hangs up the phone to the sound of him swearing. He is so much fun to tease, and she’s never been so forcefully attracted to someone before. She wonders if it’s the mask or the man himself, or possibly a mixture of the two.

It starts to rain on Friday. This would be unremarkable, but it doesn’t _stop_. The entirety of the city has been transformed into a cup beneath the spout of an overactive water cooler. At first there are puddles. Then there are drain stoppages. By the time Sunday morning rolls around, entire houses along the river have been swept away by floodwaters. Laurel has never seen anything like this. The Noah’s Flood jokes are rampant on Facebook, but there is a sense of unease that has gripped the whole city. She is sipping her first cup of coffee and scrolling through news articles on her laptop when her phone rings.

“Sweetheart?”

“Hey, Dad.”

“Thank God. I was afraid that you’d gone out to try to help with—never mind, forget about it. I’m just glad to know that you’re safe.”

“I’m fine. What do you think I would be helping with?”

“It’s not important. Actually, Donna and I were wondering if you could come over for dinner tonight.”

“I’d love to, Dad, but I’m going to have to take a rain check.”

He groans. “You’re almost as bad as Felicity. A _rain_ check?”

“That was totally unintentional,” she defends.

“What’s so important that you can’t come see your old man? Donna’s making mocktails and if you don’t come and drink them, I’ll have to.”

“Dad, I’m sure you are confident enough in your masculinity to suffer a Shirley Temple. If you must know, I have a date.”

“It’s not with—”

“—You don’t know him,” she cuts him off quickly. “But if things go well, I might introduce you two before too long.” _That is, after I actually know who he is_.

“Well, be safe. Be sure you carry.”

“Dad, are you suggesting that I’ll need to shoot my date?”

“Laurel, honey, let’s be honest here: your taste in men has historically been—”

“—Oh, would you look at the time? Love you, Dad. I have to go.”

He heaves a sigh, and Laurel feels a little bit bad before she remembers that she is a grown woman whose father is still trying to tell her who to date.

“Alright. I love you. Call me later, yeah?”

“I will. Bye, Dad.”

Laurel hangs up the phone and flicks on the TV. Whatever he is worried about her doing is probably on the channel eleven news. He always watches it in the mornings.  Sure enough, his favorite perky blond newscaster is cheerily detailing the suffering and property loss of thousands of people due to the flooding. The death toll has risen to fifty this morning, and Laurel’s stomach drops. Bad guys are one thing, but fighting Mother Nature is another. She is about to turn off the television when she sees a very familiar bakery. The angle is off as the footage is being shot via helicopter, but Laurel can swear that it’s the bakery concealing the Vibe Hive. She feels as though her heart is out of rhythm as she hears the newscaster’s words.

“The flood waters have pushed back as far as Whedon Street. Dave, why don’t you tell us more on-location.”

The screen switches to Dave, the one with the bad toupee that Laurel’s dad hates. “Thanks, Chanel. As you can see, we’re being kept behind safety lines as the water approaches our location. Thanks to the zoom on the cameras, we can actually see looters breaking into local businesses like Shot Through the Tart, a popular bakery in the area that supplied the cake for the former Thea Queen to her rags-to-riches husband, Roy Harper.”

Laurel turns the TV off. She knows that if Roy is watching this, he is probably swearing as Thea tries to placate him. The thought almost makes her smile, but she is too busy running to her bedroom to grab her Canary phone from the charger. There are no new messages, and she last talked to Vibe yesterday afternoon. She dials his number.

“Come on, Vibe. Pick up,” she says to herself as she paces from the living room into the kitchen. The phone continues to ring. _Vibe is smart. He would have evacuated by now_. For the first time, she hears his voicemail message.

“It’s Vibe, and if you got the wrong number by mistake, this is exactly what it sounds like.” His tone is an absolute purr, and Laurel giggles. There’s a brief pause. “If you actually know me, I’m probably in mortal peril and am too busy to pick up my phone. Send help and perhaps candy. Bye!”

“Hey, Vibe. It’s Canary. Call me back, please.” She wipes her sweaty hands on her pajama pants. “I’m worried.” Her second message sounds a lot like the first, and by the time she is leaving the third message, she has already outfitted herself in full Black Canary gear. “Listen, I was trying to play things cool and keep up the lighthearted teasing a little longer, but I’m going to be blunt here: you aren’t allowed to get yourself killed. I’m coming. Hold on. And if I’m totally overreacting, then we’ll come back here and have that picnic, aquatic armageddon be damned.”

She is in her car within five minutes, and she dials Felicity when she comes to a stoplight.

“I was figuring you’d call. Let me guess: you’re going out to help with the flood efforts, possibly getting yourself killed, maimed, or at the very least waterlogged in the process.” Felicity sounds incredibly put-upon.

Laurel squints at her windshield. The wipers are going at the highest speed, but it’s still hard to make out the taillights in front of her. “How’d you know?”

“Because Oliver is doing the same thing. Maybe you’ll see each other out there. Where are you going?”

“Maybe. Look, Vibe’s base of operations is about to be flooded, there are looters breaking in, and I can’t reach him. I think something’s wrong, and I’m going to go see.”

“But aren’t the buildings at the water’s edge on the news? Someone’s going to see you! It’s broad daylight, even if it is super rainy and a bit hard to see. Your hair and your outfit is distinctive. You might get arrested!”

“I have to, Felicity.”

“You are such a teenager. You’ve known this guy for about two seconds and you’ll do anything for him. It’s all very Miranda and Ferdinand from _The Tempest_. Which is fitting because, you know, it’s a freaking monsoon out there.”

“Does Oliver know that Shakespeare is the third person in your relationship? Felicity, I’ll be fine. My trackers are activated. I just have to make sure that he’s okay, and that those looters don’t stumble on something they shouldn’t.”

“Fine. You’re going to go regardless, but just don’t forget to keep me updated, okay? And for God’s sake, don’t let anyone get close enough to know who you are.”

 

* * *

 

Getting through the police line is easier than Laurel thought it would be. The cops are spread so thin that it’s a wonder that her father is not out there with them. She’s grateful for Donna, who probably convinced him to stay home. Since the newscast, the line has been moved back even further, and nobody is in the area except for occasional police and nosy reporters hoping to get some good footage. She parks several blocks back and approaches the line casually, ducking under it as if she owns the place. The rain is so thick that she can’t see more than a few feet in any direction, and it works to her advantage because nobody appears to see her as she picks her way towards the bakery.

With each step, water sluices around in her boot. Laurel makes a face and looks down, watching as water runs down her legs into her boots.

“Whoa there.”

Laurel looks up just as her chest bumps into a soggy figure, which reaches out its hands to steady her.. She makes eye contact, and part of her wants to look up at the heavens and scream, “Are you kidding me?”

It’s Ramon. In a hoodie. With a crowbar. _What fresh hell is this?_

“Do I know you? I mean, you’re the Black Canary, but do I _know_ you?” He asks, and his voice makes it sound like he doesn’t even believe himself enough to be asking.

“I don’t think so,” she says quickly. “Listen, I’m down here looking for a friend who won’t answer his phone. I shouldn’t be here, and neither should you. This city has already lost enough people today, and whatever you were going to do with that crow bar is not worth losing your life.” She reaches out a hand to touch his arm, pouring on the tenderness and altruism in the hopes that she can drown Ramon’s ideas of making a connection between his arch-nemesis at work and the Black Canary. “I’m sure you’ve got someone who really cares about you. Don’t take that away from them.”

Ramon blinks water out of his eyes and stares at her oddly. She wishes for the power of mind control. If he ever finds out her secret, her days will be over. He’ll either hold it over her head for eternity, or he’ll turn her into the cops right away. She hasn’t seen recognition yet, but she hopes his skepticism doesn’t turn into anything else.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. But you need to get out of here, too. I’m sure someone cares about you, too. The city loves you. Hell, _I_ love you. I mean, you’re my favorite vigilante.” He looks down at his shoes. Is he _blushing_?

 The Black Canary pushes all vestiges of Laurel down into the deep recesses of her mind, gives him a small smile, and says, “You’re sweet. Now get out of here before I knock you out and drag you myself.”

“Barry is not going to believe this!” he says with a grin. “Can we take a selfie?”

Laurel’s facial expression must give her impatience away.

 His shoulders fall, the grin disappearing from his face. Without his smile to crinkle their edges, his eyes look big and innocent. “Or not. I mean, you’re busy. It’s cool.”

A pang in Laurel’s chest makes her nod. “Okay. But quickly; I’ve got work to do, and if you Instagram this, you die.”

“Seriously? This is happening? Oh my God.”

“Are we going to do this or not?”

He speeds to her side, wrapping an arm around her waist as he holds his phone out. He snaps the picture before she can really pose, and she’s sure she looks bored and disinterested. He doesn’t seem to mind by the grin he’s sporting, though.

 “Thank you so much. I’ll treasure this forever. Okay. I’m getting out of here, but don’t get yourself killed. Seriously, I love you.”

She had no idea that Ramon was such a Black Canary fan. The irony of it becomes a little much, and so she just grins at Ramon in the hopes it will throw him off. “And I love you, random citizen. Now shoo.”

He gives her one last grin before he turns and runs off into the rainstorm, disappearing in five bounds. Laurel rolls her eyes. Keeping her identity secret is exhausting, and Ramon is an idiot for being down here, anyway.  She walks toward the bakery quickly, slipping a little in her waterlogged boots. Her wig feels wet, and the only thing worse than wearing synthetic hair on her head is wearing _wet_ synthetic hair on her head. She approaches the building cautiously, noticing that the glass of the front door is smashed. She hears clanging inside, and draws her baton before she enters.

Two figures are trying to break into the cash register.

“Are  you really robbing a _bakery_? Is that worth risking your lives?”

The criminals—both of whom are wearing ski masks—exchange a look before they head out the back door of the bakery with their hands up. Laurel smiles, satisfied, although she knows it was too easy. They probably have another target in mind, and probably one more lucrative than a tiny bakery.

 The lights are off and the floor is wet from where water has blown through the destroyed door. The place looks deserted, and Laurel has the horrible thought that Vibe is either out there in the downpour or trapped in the basement, which might already be filling with water. A series of loud clangs sound from below, and her heart speeds up. She hops the counter, heads to the back of the store, and tries to throw open the door of the freezer like Vibe did when he rescued her. It won’t budge.

Laurel frowns and gives it another tug. It clangs, but is unmovable. Laurel has a horrible image of him down there, water pouring in, unable to get out, beating on the walls. She throws her weight into pulling on the door, but it refuses to move. She slides her baton under the handle and grabs each side, pulling with all of her might. “You’re not leaving me!” She says under her breath, feeling tears start to sting her eyes. Everyone leaves— Oliver, her mother, Ramon, _Tommy_ —and Laurel is done being left. She lets out an angry scream as she pulls on the door. Her eyes burn with tears as her muscles burn with exhaustion, but she won’t give up, not on Vibe.

She feels a slight jolt before her baton flies out of her grip and she flies backward, catching herself on some metal shelving as the door opens.

“Canary? What. . . ?” He’s standing in the doorway to the elevator, perfectly whole and very confused. 

She doesn’t think; she launches. She wraps her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and almost takes him out. He staggers, but manages to right himself. She buries her face in the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent and reassuring herself that he’s actually there. She doesn’t realize that she’s crying until she feels the tears dripping down her cheeks and a shuddering sob works its way through her body.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. What’s wrong?” His arms are tight and warm around her, and she wants to stay there forever.

She tries to explain, but another sob comes out of her mouth and she lets go of him with her legs, standing on her own two feet but still clinging to him like he’s a life raft.

“Shhh. . . It’s going to be all right. I’ve got you. We have to get out of here, though. The water level is rising fast—it’s going to _wreck_ the Hive.”

She pulls back to look at his face, letting her fingers touch the slight scratchiness of his stubble and the curve of his jaw. “I thought,” she begins, and another sob makes it difficult to breathe. Laurel focuses on her breaths, trying to even them out. “I thought you were trapped down there, and I wasn’t going to be able to get you out.”

He folds her into his arms, rubbing her back in soothing circles. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I’m not leaving.”

Laurel feels both hope and doom rise in her chest, and she pulls back quickly. “Don’t—please don’t say that unless you’re sure. Unless you mean it. Because I don’t think I can take one more person leaving, and everyone always says they’re not going to, but they always do.”

He looks into her eyes and cups her cheek in one of his gloved hands. He says nothing, but pulls her in for a kiss that says everything.

“You mean it?”

“I mean it. Come on,” he says gently, grabbing her hand. They take a few steps before he stops abruptly and pulls her baton out of an industrial mixer. “Um, this is yours.”

“Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

By the time they make it back to Laurel’s car, she is so wet and cold that the zippers on her costume are making tiny clinking noises from her shaking. She unlocks the doors, climbs in the driver’s seat, and promptly cranks the heater before Vibe can even get into the passenger side. She tries to put on her seatbelt, but her fingers refuse to cooperate. Vibe covers her hand with his, which is somehow warmer than hers is.

“Hey, why don’t we just sit here for awhile? I’ll keep a lookout for the cops. You try to warm up.”

“But. . . We’re wearing wet clothes. It’s smarter to just head back to my—”

“—not if you’re shaking. Do you have a change of clothes in here?”

The thought of the sweatshirt and sweatpants in her go-bag makes her smile. “Great idea.”

She climbs in the backseat, seizing her duffel bag.

“Want me to unzip that? Your motor skills aren’t the best right now. I think you might be mildly hypothermic.”

“Great,” she says. “Sure. How are you not freezing?”

He shrugs as he accepts the duffel. “Thermo-regulated fabric and a hardy Puerto Rican constitution.”

“Is there anything about you that isn’t high-tech?”

“Well, I can think of a few things.” He gives her a suggestive brow wiggle and smile as he passes back the fully-unzipped duffle.

“You have high hopes for our date,” she teases as she pulls out the sweatshirt and sweatpants before she starts shimmying out of her wet clothes.

“I was hoping you’d still be up for it.” He is turned completely toward the window to give her the illusion of privacy.

Laurel is amused by the notable tension in his jaw and the rigidity of his shoulders. “Of course I am. I came all the way out here to make sure you weren’t dead or trying to weasel your way out of it.”

“Like hell,” he says fiercely. “You agreed to go on a date with me, and that’s an honor they’d have to pry from my cold, dead fingers.”

“Yeah, well, I was a little freaked out that it was a reality. Why didn’t you answer your phone? I saw the news and remembered the bakery. . .” Fully clothed again and still wearing her mask and soaked wig, Laurel tosses her wet clothes on the floor mat and pulls out the small fleece blanket she keeps in her duffel. She climbs back into the front seat and tosses the blanket at him. “Your turn.”

“Canary, I don’t have clothes to change into, and I’m not nearly as cold as you were.”

“Is that fabric waterproof?”

“No.”

“Did we just walk in the freezing cold rain and get completely soaked?”

“Yeah.”

“Then get in the backseat and take off your clothes.”

“I imagined you saying that under completely different circumstances.”

“I’m sure.” She stares at him with her favorite bitch face, which Sara and her father affectionately call The Soul Crusher.

“Okay. Changing.”

He gets in the backseat, and Laurel stares intently out the window. _Pure, happy thoughts, Laurel. Unicorns, rainbows, not catching a peep in the rear-view mirror_. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Hmm?”

“You didn’t answer your phone.”

“I’m really sorry about that,” he says. “I don’t know what you call the other you—the one who has a real job and wears normal clothes—but the other me had to be out in the rain today, and he forgot that only one of his phones is waterproof.”

Laurel makes a face. “Ziplocks. They save lives,” she says, jabbing a thumb towards the backseat, where her phone is still sealed in its ziplock. “Speaking of phones, could you pass me mine.”

“Sure. I’m done anyway.”

He climbs back into the passenger seat, dropping Laurel’s phone in her lap. She chances a glance at him, and . . . Well, there are no more unicorns or rainbows.

Droplets of water still cling to his chest, which is well muscled without being too defined.. Even relaxed, his stomach has the telltale lines that tell her he has really tight abs. The grey blanket just manages to cover him from his waist to just above his knee, and Laurel makes out the end of some really nice quads before he clears his throat. Suddenly, she’s not cold anymore.

“Excuse me, Miss. My eyes are up here.”

“Right. I’m not apologizing; I’ve caught you checking me out enough that I deserve this one, Vibe.”

He holds out his arms defensively. “Just saying. . .” He turns to put on his seatbelt, and Laurel catches a glimpse of his back, which is fully on display thanks to his ever-present man-bun. Her mouth goes dry, and she quickly buckles herself in before she takes her phone out of the ziplock and plugs it into the hands-free device on her dash.

“Well, seeing as we just left your place, do you want to come to mine?”

“I get to see the Nest?” He rubs his palms together excitedly, and Laurel tries to tell herself that she isn’t hoping the blanket will shift.

Laurel rolls her eyes. “It’s not called that.”

“Call Oracle,” she orders her phone.

Felicity picks up instantly. “We need to talk about your definition of ‘keep me posted.’”

“Sorry,” says Vibe. “We just finished taking off our clothes.”

“ _What?!_ _”_

“Vibe! Ugh, I’m sorry. His mental gutter must be overflowing like every other gutter in this town right now. Look, we’re heading back to the Perch. The Vibe Hive is out of commission for the moment, and he needs a place to stay.”

“The _Perch_?”

“I thought it was clever,” Felicity replies defensively. “And thanks for letting me know, Canary. I’ll make sure nobody uses the elevator.”

“Thanks. We’re kind of hot messes and don’t need people seeing us right now.”

“I don’t need details.”

“You sure?” Vibe says, and Laurel rolls her eyes.

“Bye, Oracle.”

“Bye, Canary. Bye, Vibe.”

“Later,” Vibe says as Laurel presses the end call button before she puts the car in drive.

The skyscraper that houses the Perch is impressive. It looks like a copper sculpture with decoration, each glass window a mosaic tile carefully placed.  When they are almost at its base, Laurel turns down a dead-end alley. She looks in the rear-view mirror, and satisfied that no one is watching, presses a key fob to a scanner embedded in the brick wall. The alley itself shifts downward, turning into a ramp, and Laurel pulls the car forward into the underground garage. Her sensible Saab looks out of place among the Bentleys and Porsches.

“Are you serious? Is this real?” Vibe’s dimples are out in full force.

“Let’s just say that someone I know owes my entire family for life,” she says. “You coming?”

“Hell yes!”

He helps her gather their sodden clothes and her duffel, although there is only so much he can do with a blanket wrapped around his waist. She leads him to the elevator, pressing the fob against a black panel. Almost immediately, the doors swish open to reveal a spacious, mirrored elevator. The doors are sliding closed, but a familiar arm slides in between them at the last minute.

Laurel almost freezes in horror, but instead, she leans over to Vibe and hisses, “I am so sorry.”

The doors open, and in walks the Arrow, fully outfitted with his bow. He waits for the doors to close, selects the floor just below the penthouse, and turns to look at Laurel and Vibe.

“Evening, Canary,” he says casually. “Who’s your friend?” His voice modulator is on, but he still sounds like the smug asshole she used to date.

Laurel feels like she could either burst into flames or melt into a puddle of shame. Instead, she braces her hands on the hips of her lilac tracksuit and summons forth the Soul Crusher. “Oracle was supposed to make sure that we were left alone.”

“She did mention something about staying clear of the elevators for a few minutes. It must have slipped my mind. Who’s your friend?”

If she weren’t exhausted, Laurel would be tempted to test her hand-to-hand skills against his. She’s improved since they last fought; she can take him. Instead, she plots to leave him to Felicity. Even Oliver Queen bows before the Loud Voice.

“Dude, we’ve saved the city together like eight times.”

“Sorry,” the Arrow replies. “I didn’t recognize you without your clothes.” He turns to Laurel. “I don’t think that this is what you really need—”

Vibe opens his mouth to say something, but Laurel cuts him off before he can even get out a word.

“No. You do not get to do this. You don’t get to pretend to be the protective figure. I get that you’re a different person now, and I’m happy to treat you with the respect that the new you deserves, but right now you’re acting like the person you were before you got my sis— before all of this. So you are going to shut up and mind your own business, and I am going to spend time with someone who makes me very happy.”

She steps back into Vibe’s side, and he immediately wraps an arm around her shoulders in what feels like a silent _so there_. 

The Arrow nods and steps towards the other side of the rapidly-rising elevator. “I am happy for you,” he says. “For you both. I apologize.”

Vibe nods. “We’re cool as long as you stop trying to make decisions for my lady. Because if you keep that up, then she’s going to beat your ass and I’ll probably get in a few shots in between filming and laughing my ass off.  And when we’re done, we’ll upload that shit to YouTube.”

“Noted. You two have a nice evening.” He steps off the elevator, and Laurel takes out her phone and taps a quick message to Felicity before the elevator dings to signal their arrival at the penthouse.

 

* * *

 

 Laurel leads Vibe down the hall into the Perch.

“What did you just do?”

“Oh, I just texted his girlfriend. I hope he enjoys the couch tonight.”

“You are a devious, devious woman.”

“You love it,” she says, stopping and holding her arms out. “So, what do you think?”

His face is absolutely _awed_ as his eyes run over her various weapons and costume cases. He approaches the computer station with something akin to reverence.

“Don’t even think about it. Those are Oracle’s, and if you touch them, she will probably kill you.”

“Fair enough,” he says, taking in the clean lines and modern furniture of the place. She grabs his hand that isn’t holding up his blanket.

“Come on. I’ll give you the tour.”

She shows him the med bay, the gym, the kitchen, the balcony, and is just about to see if there are any men’s clothes in the various bedrooms when the telltale _ping_ of the elevator sounds.

“Canary? Vibe?”

Laurel and Cisco head to the kitchen to find Felicity wearing one of Oliver’s masks, his hood, and a green dress with blue polka dots.

“That’s a great look,” Laurel comments with a snicker.

“Shut up. If you’d just tell each other who you are already, we wouldn’t have to worry about all of the secrecy. Anyway, I come bearing pants and pizza. The Arrow said you needed them. The pants, I mean. I thought you’d need the pizza. There’s a shirt there, too.”

“Bless you,” Vibe says, taking the clothes from her. He walks back towards the bedrooms, and both Laurel and Felicity watch him leave with fascination. His back is _ripped_ , and his legs are works of art.

“You didn’t tell me he was hiding all of that.” Felicity gestures to the space he just vacated. “That’s. . . Wow.”

“I didn’t know. Surprise!”

Felicity mutters something about vigilantes and being hot and requirements, and Laurel smiles.

“Thanks for the pizza.”

“Not the pants?”

“No comment.”

“I’m sorry that Oliver was an asshole. I used my Loud Voice, although sometimes I think a throat-punch would be more effective.”

“I’m not going to talk you out of it.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Vibe walks back into the room wearing grey sweatpants that are too long for him and a black v-neck that shows off his arms. He’s let his hair down, and it falls in wet, wild waves towards his shoulders. He’s still wearing his shades.

Felicity grins wickedly at Laurel. “Majestic, breeze-flowing locks. Sara will be pleased.”

“Goodbye, Oracle.”

“Hint taken, your highness. See you both later.”

Felicity makes her way out of the penthouse, and Laurel pulls two plates out of the cupboard.

“Hungry?”

“God, yes. So much hunger,” he says, reaching into the fridge and pulling out two sodas.

They load up their plates and head into the weapons room, settling on the couch with Vibe’s legs on the outside and Laurel’s on the inside as they balance their plates on their laps. For five minutes, they say nothing as they sit and eat.Vibe opens his mouth to say something, but instead just takes another bite of pizza.

“What is it?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing. I was about to ask you something way too personal.”

Laurel cocks her head. “Shoot.”

“Seriously?”

“Vibe, I know that we haven’t known each other very long, but we’ve saved each other’s lives, had a sleepover, and now you’ve met two of my friends wearing only a blanket. I think we can go with the personal questions.”

“Okay. I just. . . I know that you and the Arrow have history. But what _kind_ of history? You said something about your sister— you have a sister?”

“Yes. Two, actually. Well, a step-sister that just joined my family a few years ago, as well as a sister I grew up with. As for me and the Arrow, it’s pretty messy.”

“Messy doesn’t really scare me,” he tells her, letting out a dry laugh. “My father figure went rogue and tried to kill my best friend, me, and pretty much the entire city. So yeah, I can understand messy”

Laurel reaches out and gives his leg a comforting squeeze. “I’m sorry. It’s kind of hard to tell this story without telling you about me—the me who has a day job. But I’ll tell you what I can.”

He nods. “Tell me what you want to.”

“It started in high school. We dated—the Arrow and I. It was one of those relationships where he was it for me, but I wasn’t it for him.”

Vibe seems to need a few seconds to process. “He cheated on _you_? Why would anyone ever feel the need to do that? I mean, you’re _you_.”

Laurel has never met anyone who made her feel like this. It’s as if he can’t fathom anyone ever wanting to hurt her, as if he he thinks she’s the most perfect person to exist.

“It’s sweet that you see it that way, but O—the Arrow—was pretty much a playboy, and I didn’t really want to see it. I had just started my first year of undergrad. I was up late studying for this horrible honors psychology exam. I had gotten a few texts, but I ignored them because I was trying to study. Then my dad called me.” The images of that night are fresh and clear in her mind—the half-eaten chocolate chip cookie on the edge of her desk, the silver French tips her roommate had painted on her fingernails—as she takes a jumpy breath.

“Hey, we don’t have to go there.” Vibe places one of his warm hands on her leg, gently stroking the fabric of her sweatpants with his thumb.

“No. It’s fine,” she says. “I just kind of have one of those shitty life stories that comes off as tragedy, and I sort of hate telling it. But you deserve to know.”

“I’m honored,” he tells her, and from anyone else, it would sound insincere. From him, it’s truth.

“My dad called. My sister has always been a bit of a wild child. She liked to party, and I think part of it was just to piss off our dad. But that night, she’d gotten an offer to ride on a motorcycle with an older boy, and _of course_ she said yes. They had been out joyriding, playing chicken with the few cars out that late. Well, he ran a red light, and a Hummer hit them from the side going sixty miles an hour.”

“Oh, God.”

Laurel takes a slow sip of her soda and pulls off all of the tendrils of past emotions that are trying to attach to her heart again. “So obviously, when my dad found out, he went straight to the hospital. I met him there, and my sister was still in surgery. It was a long night; she was in surgery for fifteen hours. She hadn’t been wearing protective clothing—a little black dress and a helmet that probably saved her life. It was touch and go for a while, and they ended up having to take both of her legs just below the knee. She broke her collarbone, her wrist, and three ribs, and there was a lot of internal bleeding. She didn’t wake up for two weeks.”

“I can’t even imagine what that was like. I’m so sorry that you and your family had to go through that.”

Laurel gives him a small smile. “Thanks. But that’s not all. The boy—the one who had picked her up after her fake ID got rejected at a bar—that boy was my boyfriend, the Arrow before he became the Arrow. The motorcycle ride happened _after_ they spent a few hours in a hotel room together. He walked away from the accident with a broken arm and a few cuts.”

Vibe swings his legs over the side of the couch and opens his arms. “Come here.”

Laurel scoots into his embrace. He wraps his left arm around her and strokes her hair with his right hand. She lays her head on his chest, the steady beat of his heart anchoring her to this moment. She realizes that in this moment, she is finally divorced from the emotions from that night. There is still a deep ache in her chest at the memory, but she is no longer drowning in anxiety and betrayal.

“The worst part was that I couldn’t be mad at her—I just couldn’t. She was sixteen; she still slept with a stuffed animal.”

“But you could be mad at him.”

“Oh, yes. I was horribly angry for a very long time. But then I met someone, and he was really good at letting me forget that any of it had happened. But then the earthquake happened, and he died.” She blinks away tears at the memory of Tommy. “So you can see why I don’t tell everyone this, because historically, it’s scared people off.”

“None of them were worth your time, then.” He leans down and kisses her softly. “So, you’ve been alone since the earthquake? Canary, that was three years ago. That’s a long time.”

Laurel melts into his arms. “There was someone else for a little while after Tommy. Someone I met at work.”

Vibe threads his fingers through hers. “Someone _else_ hurt you? What the hell is wrong with people?”

The way he tenses almost makes her laugh. “It’s fine. It was a lot of flirting and one almost-date that I now refer to as ‘The Incident.’  I’m over it.”

“I’m not,” he grumbles. “Asshole.”

“You’re adorable,” she tells him as she leans back into his embrace. His warmth sooths her, seeping through her back and making her muscles relax. “I’m sorry about the Hive.”

“I am, too. I put so much work into it,” he says sadly. “But it’s an excuse to rebuild, and it’s going to be bigger and better. I’m talking door-hidden-behind bookcase cool.”

“You hid an elevator in an industrial freezer. I think you already had the whole ‘hidden and super cool’ thing down.”

He smiles and kisses the top of her head. “Yeah, but this is going to be next-level. I was going to add another costume case, anyway.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We can’t have you stealing all of my boxers.”

“Are you going to be okay? You have a place to stay, right?”

“Plainclothes me has a house. Don’t worry about that. And I can always use the Flash’s base if I need to.”

“Or here,” Laurel offers. “The Arrow won’t bother you; Oracle keeps his balls in a jar on her desk, and now that she knows he’s been acting like his old self, she’s going to be watchful.”

“She sounds pretty terrifying. Why isn’t she out in the field?”

“You have no idea. And she does fieldwork sometimes, but it’s not her favorite thing to do. She really likes tech. Sometimes, we have her lean on people when they’re tough to crack.”

“She _tortures_ people?”

Laurel laughs. “In a way. Mostly, she donates their money to charity until they agree to talk.”

“Badass.”

“She is. We didn’t get off on the right foot, but I can’t imagine her not being in my life now. Sometimes, you get to know someone little by little, and then you wake up one morning and realize that they’re your best friend.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Yeah? You and the Flash, right? You always seem like besties in the articles. Well, when they’re not spinning it as a torrid affair. It’s not a torrid affair, right?”

Vibe laughs deeply and shakes his head. “No. No torrid affair, but we are kind of soul mates in a weird way. No matter what life throws our way, we find our way through it together. It’s like the universe wants us to be bros.”

“That is adorable. I’ve only met the Flash once or twice, but I like him.”

“He’s pretty great. We actually became friends as our other selves. He knew about his powers before I knew about mine, although we both got them from the particle accelerator explosion. For a while, I was kind of his Oracle. I helped with tech and stuff when I wasn’t working my day job. He was there for me through a lot, and he always believed in me even when I screwed things up. I’d never had that before.”

“Not even from your family?”

Vibe heaves a sigh. “Not quite. They’re all great in their own ways, but they are so far out of my mindset that it’s hard to relate. I decided to become a . . . Well, I decided to start a line of work that would have made them proud, but the way that I did it means that I don’t make the money that they think that I should. It also means that I’m never really going to get a lot of recognition, which is something they wanted for our family. One of my brothers is a concert pianist and a businessman, though, so at least they got that. Another one of my brothers owns a lot of land, and one of my sisters is in med school. The other one is still in high school, but I know she’ll do great things. I don’t get why what I do matters to them; they have four other kids to make them proud. It’s not like this is _Mulan_ and I’m solely responsible for their honor.”

“You have four siblings?”

“Yep.”

“Wow. That’s a lot.”

“They’re very Catholic. You’ll see.”

“I will?” Laurel can’t help the smile that spreads across her face. He’s thought about her meeting his parents, and although she’s nervous at the idea, she likes it.

“Not if you don’t want to,” he says quickly. “I don’t want to pressure you. And orchestrating a meeting would be hard, because half of them still live in Detroit.”

“You’re not. I’d actually really like that. And I’d like you to meet my family. My sisters already think you’re precious, my mom will love you, my step-mom will probably try to flirt with you, and my dad might attempt to scare you before he figures out that you’re perfect for me.” She pauses for a second, imagining it all. “Are we seriously having the DTR talk?”

“Canary, I am a guy. The only DTR I have ever heard of stands for Data Transfer Rate.”

“Define The Relationship— you know, the whole ‘So, what are we?’ talk that plagued every high school relationship ever.”

He nods in understanding. “Then I guess we are sitting here on your couch preparing to DTR.”

“Okay. So, what do you want out of this?”

He swallows heavily, and she wonders if he’s picturing Admiral Akbar saying “It’s a trap!”

She quickly moves to recover. “I mean, where do you see this going? Ugh, is there a way to say that that doesn’t sound like I’m putting you on the spot?”

“No, not really. It’s okay, though. And since we’ve been having sharing time for the past hour or so, I’m just going to tell this to you as it comes out of my head, okay?”

“Okay.”

He takes his arm from her shoulders and sits up straight. She mirrors his movements, and he takes both of her hands in his. “I really, _really_ like you. That was a lie. I love you. And I know that it’s sudden and soon, but I realized it when we were holding hands in that alley after you kissed me. So what I want out of this is to get to see your smile on a regular basis. I want to fall asleep next to you, have you steal my clothes, and wow you with Abuela’s enchilada recipe so you’ll never want to leave me.”

Laurel can feel happy tears filling her eyes. “But you don’t even know about half of my life.”

“I know that someone like you can’t be a bad person, and I want to get to know the other side of you so I can fall in love with her, too.”

“Wow.”

“Is that an I-feel-the-same-way wow, or a holy-shit-what-a-stalker wow?”

Laurel wipes a tear from her eye. “That’s a that’s-the-most-beautiful-thing-anyone-has-ever-said-to-me wow. And it’s a wow, you’re the first person who has ever made me smile like this. It’s also a wow, for once, the person I love loves me at the same time wow. And it’s a bit of an I’m-scared-we’ll-hate-each-other’s-alter-egos wow.”

“It sounds like a very complex wow.”

“Mmhmm.” She leans in to kiss him, their lips moving naturally together. Finally, Laurel understands that she’s been kissing the wrong men her whole life. None of them could compare to this.

“For now, we can stay Canary and Vibe, but what do you think about next week?”

“Next week?”

“The big reveal. We could finally have our rooftop picnic and do it together—not _that_ , crazy eyes—unless you wanted to. But I want to know all of you before I  _know_ you.”

“Did you just make a biblical knowing statement?”

“ _Very_ Catholic upbringing,” he reminds her.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Next week, then. Assuming that the city doesn’t get taken over by villains or fall into the sea by then, that is.”

“Both very real dangers,” Laurel remarks playfully.

“Well, if we’re going to wash away, we should probably make out as much as we can before we go.”

“Excellent idea. Carpe diem.”

“Ooh, foreign languages. Sexy. _Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir?_ ”

“Didn’t you just say you wanted to wait until we revealed our secret identities?”

“The French have a lot of words for sex, and most of them are euphemisms. The verb se coucher just means to go to bed together.”

“So it’s an invitation to a snuggle fest?”

“Basically.”

“Count me in.”

As Laurel falls asleep in Vibe’s arms again that night, she decides that she could get used to this arrangement very easily.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our poor little precious babies. In the next chapter, we'll get more information about The Incident and have our first encounter with a badly-constructed villain of my own making who really likes to . . . tick people off. More on that in the teaser, which will be out Monday or Tuesday.


	4. These Boys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains one of the moments a lot of you have been waiting for. I hope you enjoy it :) Also, I'm putting a WARNING here. If sexytimes of the angry (but clearly consensual) variety upset you, or if sexytimes are not your thing, I suggest skipping the LAST section of this chapter. It's marked by horizontal rulers like the rest of the sections, and is mostly italics. Ask me in a comment, and I'll give you the PG, non-triggering version. As always, thanks for your support and loveliness, and I hope you enjoy the chapter :)

Laurel is late to family dinner because the last day of the Criss trial took longer than expected. As she stands in front of Sara and Nyssa’s door with a covered casserole dish in hand, she remembers the wildly inappropriate hug that she and Ramon had given each other before either of them had realized what they were doing. _It was because of the case. We were just excited_ , she tells herself.

“Are you going to come in?”

Sara and Nyssa’s door swings open to reveal Thea, and Laurel shakes her head.“What?”

“You’ve been standing there for like a minute without walking in or knocking. What’s up with you?”

“Nothing. It’s just been a long two weeks.”

“You wrapped up the Shonda Criss case today, right? That was a big one. Congratulations.”

Laurel lets out a breath as she follows Thea into the house, where laughter and a sweet, spicy smell fill the air. “Thanks. We worked really hard.”

“We?”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “Did your mom not tell you that she put me with Ramon on this one?”

Thea takes Laurel’s coat and hangs it up on a coat tree near the door. “That would involve her having time to speak to me. And why do you say she ‘put’ you with Cisco? Why don’t you guys like each other, anyway?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ll squeeze it out of you eventually.”

Laurel starts walking towards the kitchen. “Sara, I’m here! Where should I put the spinach dip?”

“Run while you can,” Thea says quietly, and Laurel thinks that her alter-ego ought to be called Sneaky or Scary.

Dinner comes together in a flurry of mismatched dishes and the addition of all four leaves to Sara and Nyssa’s dining room table. A hodgepodge of chairs—dining room chairs, folding chairs, camp chairs, and even a giant bowl chair that Thea claims for herself—surrounds the table, filled with a family much bigger than Laurel ever imagined. At the head of the table sit Sara and Nyssa. To Sara’s right are their father and Donna and Oliver and Felicity; to Nyssa’s left are Laurel, her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, Paul. Thea and Roy sit at the other end of the table. Everyone serves themselves, talking and laughing with only moderate awkwardness from the Lance parents being in the same room with their new partners.

“Oh!” Sara says. “I almost forgot. There’s something else in the oven—well, Nyssa’s oven—but it’s not going to be done for another 7 months or so.”

Laurel watches gleefully as it dawns on her father first, and then her mother.

“A grandbaby?”

“You’re pregnant?”

A roar of conversation washes over the entire table, and Laurel studies them all with quiet happiness. Laurel and Nyssa are both absolutely glowing, as are both parents and their partners. Thea and Roy are holding hands, smiling softly, and Felicity’s shoulders are drooping in relaxation as she explains how hard it was to keep a secret from Oliver. Oliver himself looks happy, although he’s got this tinge of sadness that he always does whenever he’s around Sara.

 It comes out that Roy is the biological father, and he get congratulated and “what a wonderful gift”ed until his face is red.

“Hey, I just get to be the cool godfather and get the kid hyped up on sugar before I send it back. I think I got the good end of the deal here.”

Eventually, they finish dinner and move on to dessert, including an amazing pumpkin pie by Donna and some eclairs that Thea ordered from a bakery.

“They’re still not quite as good as Shot Through the Tart’s, but they’ll do until the bakery rebuilds,” Thea comments, licking a bit of custard from her finger.

“I saw that on the news. Horrible, all that flooding,” Donna remarks.

“I know. Fortunately, they came into an anonymous donation,” Laurel says, staring at Thea. “I wonder where that could have come from.”

Thea ducks her head. “Their baked goods are made with love and probably some illegal yet delicious substance. Don’t judge me.”

Laurel holds up her hands. “Not judging, just observing.” She feels her phone buzz in her pocket. “Excuse me,” she says, slipping out the back door and onto the empty patio. It’s chilly outside, but she knows that her smile whenever she texts Vibe would be like catnip to Thea, Donna, and her mother. She settles on the porch swing and opens the text.

**At family dinner. Please put me out of my misery—Vibe.**

**Me, too. Sorry it** **’s not going well for you. What’s wrong? :( —Canary**

***dramatic sigh* Everything. They** **’ve moved past the “When are you getting promoted?” to “When are you getting a girlfriend?” And it’s only like a mini-family dinner because it’s just my two brothers—Vibe**

**Tell them you** **’re seeing someone—Canary**

**I am? I mean, I know, but they** **’ll want a name.—Vibe**

**Just tell them you** **’ll introduce them soon enough. We’re meeting tomorrow, after all—Canary**

**Will do. But I** **’m totally telling them that you’re a bed hog.—Vibe**

**Am not!—Canary**

**Tell that to my body, which is still sore from perching precariously on the edge of your bed.—Vibe**

**Poor baby.—Canary**

**How** **’s your family dinner going?—Vibe**

**Fine. A little overwhelming, but pretty good. I** **’m going to be an auntie!—Canary**

**Aww! Congratulations, Aunt Black Canary. I** **’m sure you’ll be the best protector ever to that kid—Vibe**

**You** **’re sweet, but his or her moms are plenty capable of keeping them safe, and I’m not the only protective auntie or uncle. You’ll see—Canary**

**Yeah, but nobody else could ever do as good a job as you** **’re going to.—Vibe**

**Because you** **’re perfect and strong and very smart—Vibe**

**And I think you** **’re pretty—Vibe**

**I** **’m definitely keeping you. Because you’re funny and wicked smart and also very, very handsome—Canary**

**And here I thought you only wanted me for my body ;)—Vibe**

Laurel is laughing aloud when she hears the door swing open. Thea, bundled in a coat and carrying Laurel’s coat and a blanket, shuffles towards her.

“I thought you might need this,” she says, handing Laurel her coat and sitting beside her on the porch swing. She spreads out an afghan—probably hand-crocheted by Nyssa—over their laps. “Who has you smiling so big?”

“Thanks,” Laurel says, sliding her arms into her coat. The chill in the air is mild, but she knows that if she sits out here for any longer without a jacket, it will seep into her bones. “I’m seeing someone,” she says. “And you can only talk to Sara, Nyssa, and Felicity about it. They know, but I haven’t told anyone else yet, and it’s still pretty new because he’s . . . One of us.”

“You don’t know his identity?”

“Not yet. We’re doing that tomorrow, actually.”

“Ooh, exciting. So, which one are you dating? Please tell me it’s not Firestorm, because you know he’s two separate people, right?” Thea shudders. “One of them is old and both are married.”

Laurel laughs. “Ew, no. No, it’s Vibe.”

“The one who rescues kittens in addition to fighting crime?”

“That’s the one.”

“Nice,” Thea says, then grins. “Mom is going to be so pissed.”

“Thea, you know how well I get along with your mother. Why the hell would she have a vested interest in my personal life?”

Thea shrugs, picking her nails. “She has a pool going at the office—she put some money on you and Ramon ending up together.”

A wobbly laugh springs out of Laurel’s mouth. “Wow. Betting on her employees’ love lives is a new low; she must really miss Walter while he’s in London.”

“You have no idea. But come on, Laurel. . . I’m in the office at least twice a week for some reason or another, and Cisco is so precious and charming. You two seem like you’d really hit it off. What gives?”

Laurel rolls her eyes and sighs. _Why not? Now that I_ _’m fully moving on, there’s no reason not to tell her_. “Fine. I didn’t always hate Ramon, and he didn’t always hate me. Moira assigned me to show him the ropes at Tempest.” She smiles a little, remembering the eager smile and _Star Wars_ shirt he’d sported that day. She even remembers her stomach flipping the first time she ever saw him swirl his tongue around a grape lollipop.

“And. . .”

“And we kind of hit it off. We just got talking, and since he’s right across the hall, it was kind of an office flirting thing. Every morning, he’d bring in muffins or donuts and stop by my office because he was ‘on the way to the break room’ even though he has to pass the break room to get to our offices. I’d bring the coffee. I really looked forward to seeing him every day.” A tinge of wistfulness for the way that Ramon used to make her feel invades her mind, but she brushes it off. _You have Vibe now._

“So what happened?”

“He asked me out.” Laurel can still smell the odd fruitiness of the muffin he’d placed on her desk. “He actually brought me blueberry muffins most mornings, but one day, he came in with a different kind. I asked what it was, and he said ‘It’s date. Now that we’re on the subject of dates, would you like to go on one with me?’”

“Aww. That is so cheesy, but it’s kind of adorable.”

“I thought so, too. We were going to meet at this little sushi place. I had to ask Oliver to cover my patrol, but I did because that was how much I wanted this date to work out. And I showed up dressed to _kill_. There was red lace. The first ten minutes, I thought that he had just gotten held up. I drank a glass of water, and I waited. I waited, and eventually ordered myself three California rolls and ate them all. And then I left.”

“He stood you up? What? I mean, why? Did he ever say?”

Laurel swallows down the lump that she feels when she remembers that night. She hates lying to Thea, but there are some things she can’t put into words.  “He came into work the next morning acting like nothing was wrong. And when I reminded him where he was supposed to be, he said that something came up. He wouldn’t say what, and I asked him if it was more important than me, and he said yes. There wasn’t even a bit of hesitation, and he said that it wouldn’t be a good idea to date him, anyway, and that he wasn’t good for me. It was eerily like Oliver’s typical bullshit.”

“So he just left it at that? But why does he hate you, too? Every time I mention you, he changes the subject, and I’ve heard some of the stuff he says to you.”

“I might have told him that I was out of his league, anyway. And that it was a pity date, and that he probably had a pencil dick. I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly enough to remember it all. I wasn’t nice about it, but he wasn’t, either. He was the first guy that I . . . Well, after Tommy.”

Thea wraps her arm around Laurel’s shoulders. “Hey, I get it. He hurt you, and what he did was a total dick move.”

“It was. And I didn’t react well, but he just brushed me aside like I meant nothing. But we’re not nearly as hateful as we used to be, I guess. He’s called me a bitch like twice this week, maximum.”

“Wow. You’re practically besties. What do you call him?”

“Usually ‘that bastard’ when he’s the only one listening, but we actually called each other by our first names by accident this afternoon after the verdict came in. We were both glad that the case worked out in our favor.”

“I’m sure. Well, I’m glad that your office nemesis might not be so horrible after all, but I’m even happier that you have Vibe now. I want to meet him soon—after you know who the real him is.”

“I know it sounds weird, but I feel like I know the real him already. He’s just so genuine, even hiding behind those ridiculous shades and giving me goofy grins.”

“Do I hear wedding bells?”

“What part of ‘I don’t even know his name’ screams matrimony to you?”

“All of it,” Thea says serenely. “Now, unless you want to freeze yourself to death, why don’t we head inside and get some hot chocolate or something? It’s your choice, but I’m taking the blanket.”

“Arm twister.”

“Hermit.”

* * *

 

Laurel and Thea manage to each eat half of a second serving of dessert before Felicity awkwardly gathers Oliver, Laurel, Thea and Roy in the kitchen under the pretense of wanting to show them a cat video.

“And you thought my excuses were bad,” Oliver mumbles to Felicity.

“Bullet holes. Latte. I win.”

“Fine.”

“What exactly are we doing in here, Blondie?”

“Subtly discussing hero business without ruining everyone’s second dessert.” Felicity pulls out her tablet, flipping it around to show everyone else.

On the screen is Dupree Tower, the nicest hotel in all of Starling City. Red and blue lights reflect off of its surface, and a police line features prominently. A ribbon running along the bottom of the screen proclaims a hostage situation with a bomb threat from a remote attacker. 

“He’s locked all of the doors remotely. I hacked into the security cameras, and he has explosives wired to the ice machines on every third floor—if he sets them all off, it will take the whole block out.”

“We need to get you back to the Perch—it’s closer than the Foundry, and everyone needs to suit up.”

“What are we going to tell everyone?”

“Felicity had a little too much wine, Oliver is taking her home, Laurel has a hot date, and Thea and Roy are going home to celebrate not being parents. Easy. Mom and Paul will buy it, and Dad and Donna will know, anyway.” Sara is leaning against the door frame with her arms folded.

“Not bad,” Roy says.

“I used to be the queen of great excuses in my glory days,” Sara says with a blasé flip of her hair. “I like to think that I still have it. Now go. I’ll talk to Mom and Paul.”

“Thank you,” Oliver says, placing a hand on her shoulders as he leaves the kitchen. They all follow, grabbing coats and filtering through the front door while Nyssa and Sara show their remaining guests the beginnings of the nursery.

 

They suit up in record time, Laurel only having time to tap out a quick text to Vibe once she is sitting in the back of one of Oliver’s nondescript getaway vans.

**Headed to Dupree Tower with the gang. Bomb threat—might need backup if things get rough.—Canary**

**Not waiting until things get rough. Meeting you there.—Vibe**

“I never get invited to family dinner,” Diggle grumbles from the front seat.

“You aren’t dating a Lance sister.”

“Yeah, well, that would be difficult because I’m married. And it’s the principle.”

“If it helps, they were just doing it to announce news that you already knew two weeks ago,” Laurel remarks. According to Nyssa, Diggle had been at the gym when she’d had one of her worst bouts with morning sickness, and as soon as he was finished holding her hair back, he’d congratulated her. “Also, we have backup meeting us at the hotel.”

“You mean your boyfriend?” Oliver’s tone is tight and holds a slight challenge.

“Can we not?” Diggle’s words are an echo of Laurel’s constant mantra when it comes to Oliver’s asshole tendencies.

“Yes, Digg. We won’t,” Laurel says pleasantly. “And if I were you, I’d be glad to have someone on our team who can—oh, I don’t know—vibrate doors open.”

They screech to a halt on a side street, Roy and Thea right behind them on a motorcycle. Their parking leaves something to be desired, but they have bigger things to do.

Felicity remotely breaks them into a nearby bank tower that is closed for renovation. From the roof, Roy, Thea and Oliver shoot arrows across the space between the bank and the hotel. Laurel, Digg and Thea slide down first, with Oliver and Roy close behind. Laurel’s feet have just touched down on the rooftop when she sees yellow lightning. Suddenly, she’s face to face with the Flash, at whose side is her favorite fellow hero.

“You mentioned backup?” She has the vague impression that he is winking behind his shades.

“How did you get here so—”

“—fast? It’s my thing. C—Vibe is just along for the ride. Good to see you again, Black Canary.”

“Likewise,” she replies easily. She turns to Vibe. “I mentioned that we _may_ need backup. _Maybe_.”

“Hey, I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to see you, and this looks big.”

“It does. Which is why there should be more saving people and less chatting,” Oliver remarks, his voice modulator on.

“But if we _do_ need to chat, take these,” Thea offers, holding out two earwigs in her hand. “Hi. I’m Speedy.”

“Vibe.”

“The Flash. Do you just carry those around with you all the time?”

“I’ve got to put something in this utility belt.”

“Speedy.”

“Coming, _Dad_.” She rolls her eyes and turns back to the Flash and Vibe. “Put those in.”

Laurel turns on her own earwig and watches the others do the same.

“—why we even have these things if none of you will ever listen to me!”

“You’re in my head. Weird.”

“Vibe?”

“Hi.”

“Hey, Felicity.”

The resulting variations of Oh-my-God-Flash-we-use-codenames-for-a-reason are nearly deafening.

 

Moments later, Laurel finds herself on the thirtieth floor with the Flash. They have a system worked out; he vibrates the electronic locks with his super speed until something jiggles out of place and the door unlocks. It takes a while for each door, but it’s better than shooting the locks and possibly hurting someone inside. Once the doors are open, Laurel directs the terrified hotel guests down through the stairwells and instructs them to go to the basement. When the last guest on this floor—a middle-aged man with a tie and a whiskey stain on his starched white shirt—scurries down the stairs, the Flash appears beside Laurel.

“Why are we sending them to the basement again? That’s a horrible plan. If things blow, they’re all getting buried in rubble.”

“These devices aren’t on timers,” Laurel says patiently. “If Digg, the Arrow and Vibe don’t get those devices disarmed first, they could blow at any time. If the bomber sees people exiting the building, he’ll know that something’s wrong and he’ll trigger it. Felicity has the cameras on loops for him—he thinks everything’s going according to plan.”

“We could have sent them to the top floor.”

“Flash, if these things go off, nobody is getting out alive.”

He makes a pained expression, but Laurel just opens the door to the next floor and he speeds off in a flash of lightning. Within a minute, two more doors are open.

“This way, down the stairs. Head to the basement, that’s right.”

“Who the hell do you think you are? Maybe we should just stay in our rooms like this guy obviously wants us to. Did you see what he put up on our TV screens? I don’t want to disagree with that kind of threat.”

An irate woman wearing a sari and a frown stands in her doorway, two young boys behind her.

“We’re just trying to help. Please, your best chance is to evacuate. We have people disarming the devices right now.”

“You didn’t answer. Have you seen what he says he’ll do to us?” The woman beckons Laurel into the room, telling her boys to go into the bathroom and not to come out until she tells them to.

Laurel follows the woman’s frenetic hand gestures to the hotel television, which shows a familiar face. Laurel’s leg begins throbbing as she stares at a tear-stained face and blond hair. _The boy_. That night at the Kord, she’d been trying to save this boy, and he’d fallen into even worse hands. His own hands are shaking as he reads from a sheet of paper.

“H-hello, Dupree Tower guests. As you may have noticed, your doors are locked. Oops. My bad.” The kid looks terrified and keeps staring off camera and flinching. A gun barrel appears now and then in the periphery, and the boy continues.

 “I just wanted to let you know that there are bombs in the ice machines on every third floor of this building, and that you are going to die very soon unless I get what I want.  You can thank your housekeeping staff for that. Everyone has a price. I want you to stay still. At least one of you idiots is going to call the police; that’s fine. After all, someone needs to let Madeline Dupree know that this is all for her. She said she wanted someone with a little bit of spark, someone who could burn her up from the inside. Well, baby, I’m listening, and I know you’re not there right now. You’re at a friend’s house, which is better, because when all of these people die, you’ll know that it’s all for you. If you don’t want them to die, all you have to do is call. You know my number, Maddie. And if you don’t answer by ten o’clock, then I’m just going to go ahead and have a pity party. D-don’t worry. It’ll be a _blast_.”

The boy’s face is marked with tear tracks, and he stares into the camera with blue, tear-filled eyes for five seconds before the loop starts again.

“You see? This crazy man’s problem is not with us. If we do as he says, if we wait for this Madeline to do the right thing, everything will be okay.”

“Look, we don’t have time to argue about this. We’ve blocked the cameras—he can’t see us. He doesn’t know what’s going on, and the longer you wait here, the less chance your boys have of getting out of here alive. Please, just listen to me.”

The woman shakes her head. “I’m staying here.”

Laurel sighs and presses her earwig. “Flash,” she says quietly. “Room 2909.”

He appears. “You rang?”

“Please escort this woman and her two boys downstairs. You’ve opened the rest of the doors, right?”

He nods. “Meet you on the next floor down when I’m finished.”

“The boys are in the bathroom.”

“Gotcha.”

“I’d like to see you try—” the woman begins, but she disappears.

“I think you just did,” she mutters to the air. She pauses, but heads out to the hallway to usher the remaining guests into the stairwell. “Oracle,” she says over the com, “have you seen the message he’s broadcasting over the TVs in the rooms?”

“I just got access. There’s nothing in frame that can tell me anything about this guy, though.”

“I know. I know that he’s using a hostage to read the message, though. Can you run him through facial recognition and get me an ID?”

“Maybe. I’ll start running it.”

“Thanks. Have you been listening to what’s going on with the police?”

“They’ve found Madeline, and she’s currently down at the station preparing to call him. It’s 9:30 now, so you guys need to hurry. If she does something to trigger him. . .”

“Then it’s bon voyage to us all,” Laurel says tightly. “Right.” She waves people along. “This is not a Denny’s parking lot, people. Move!”

* * *

 

At 9:45, they get word that the call is being made.

“Shit! How many more do you have?” Speedy’s voice sounds nervous over the coms.

“Two.” The Arrow’s voice is tense.

“We’re on our next-to-last floor. Arsenal and Speedy, how are you doing?”

“Just finished.”

“Great. Flash, you go help the Arrow, Digg and Vibe. Arsenal, Speedy, come help me get the rest of these people out of their rooms.”

“Got it.”

The Flash disappears, and Laurel pulls a credit card out of her utility belt and begins jamming it in the nearest door. It takes a few minutes and a bit of cursing, but she manages to get it open and send the occupants—a mom with her hair in rollers and a teenage daughter in Pokemon pajamas—down the stairs before Arsenal and Speedy appear. This is much harder than letting herself back into her father’s house after a night of sneaking out.

“Seriously?”

Roy slides a key card into the lock, smirking when a green light flashes. He opens the door. “House arrest is over. Head down the stairwell to the basement. Don’t try to use the elevators; they’re not working.”

The family inside scurries down the hall without looking back, nevermind the fact that they are all in their pajamas.

“Where the hell did you get that?”

“Master key. The staff were all locked in the break room, and we started from the bottom. Have you seriously been using a credit card the whole time? Amateur.”

“No. Flash just vibrated the locks open, but then he went to go help with the bombs.”

“Yeah. Well, take this.” Roy pulls out another key card and hands it to her.

“So, you nervous about Vibe working with the Arrow and Digg?”

“Are you really asking me this right now?”

“Just making conversation.”

“You are the worst. The. Worst.”

Laurel opens another door and waves a family down the hall. They’ve finished with the floor, and race down the stairs to the final floor. It’s 9:57 and they are still sending the last three rooms of people down the stairs.

“All but one of the devices are offline. What’s the holdup?” Felicity’s voice is the forced calm that she uses when she’s trying not to flip. Laurel recognizes this tone.

“This one is wired differently,” the Flash says quickly. “We’re not sure if we can—”

“—yes, we can. We just have to reroute the power supply around the receiver so we can cut off power to the receiver but not to the circuit board itself, because the disruption will trigger the explosives. Guys, I got this. Get out of here—all of you. Down to the basement—get the people out of here. If he’s going to do it, he’ll do it anyway.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Laurel says firmly. “Where are you?”

“Canary, unless you’re a bomb expert, you’re just going to distract me. I love you. I need you to be okay.”

“I’m not going to be okay unless I can see you.”

Laurel is running into the stairwell when she finds her feet not on the ground anymore and the world moving as a blur. She’s standing in front of Vibe before she knows it, and a yellow streak of lightning is reflecting off of the cream colored-walls of the hallway.

“How can I help?”

Surprisingly, Oliver and Digg are nowhere to be seen. She doesn’t know how he convinced them to leave, but she is glad to know that they are closer to safety, at least.

He presses his lips together. His hands are tangled in a rainbow of wires spilling out of a black cylinder. “Oracle, Canary, have you seen _Firefly_?”

Laurel gapes at him for half of a second before she answers that she has. Felicity doesn’t even hesitate.

“I’m going to have to pull a Crazy Ivan.” There is a moment of absolute silence. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

“That’s a bad analogy, but I take it you’re going to switch the wires simultaneously?” Felicity sounds skeptical. “It’ll have to be perfect.”

“That’s why I’ll need Canary to be my Kaylee in this situation. When I pull this orange wire out of that jack, you need to plug the purple wire in while I put the orange wire where the purple wire was. Got it?”

“Got it.”

He guides her fingers to the wire, and for a moment, she is reminded of an afternoon with Ramon in the copy room.

“You ready?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

He lets go of her hand.

“Now,” they say together, and Laurel’s hand is shaking so much that she’s surprised she manages to keep up her half of the deal. Their hands brush each other, and for a brief second, Laurel thinks that this wouldn’t be the worst way to go out. By the time she has time to process that thought, she realizes that they’ve done it.

Felicity is saying something, but Laurel doesn’t really hear her as she pulls Vibe in for a searing, relieved, passionate kiss.

* * *

 

Work, Sara and Nyssa’s family dinner and an almost-explosion should make it easy for Laurel to sink into her soft bed and slip into dreams. Instead, it is two in the morning and she is clinging to a cup of tea, letting the edge of the mug rest against her sternum and infuse her chest with warmth. Ever since she can remember, Laurel has been a nervous shiverer. In high school, it didn’t matter if it was sixty or ninety degrees in the auditorium; just before Laurel would step on stage before a play, she would become so cold that she’d start to shake.  It has always been a quirk, a little thing about herself that only a few people know. She knows that it is weird, but what’s even weirder in her mind is the fact that only hours ago, she remained warm and comfortable while diffusing a bomb.

Now, with the promise of revealing her identity to Vibe looming over her head, Laurel can’t press enough heat into her body. With eyes that burn with exhaustion, Laurel stares blankly out her kitchen window at the lights of the city. They’ve always been a comfort to her—proof that there are people sharing a kiss, tucking their children in, studying hard for a test the next day—but tonight, they remind her that she has company in her insomnia. Laurel takes her tea into the living room and wraps herself in a brown afghan that Nyssa gave to her last Christmas. The soft material against her skin reminds her of her discussion with Thea earlier in the evening. Alone and safe from prying eyes, Laurel allows herself to think about The Incident in its entirety, not just the edited version she gave Thea. She’d told the truth about the date, but what happened after is something that she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to talk about aloud.

_The tears dried on Laurel_ _’s cheeks as she drove home. Full of California rolls and empty of the excitement she’d had on the way there, Laurel pulled into her apartment complex. She caught her reflection in her rear-view mirror, the smudged black mess of her eye makeup cruelly mimicking her Canary Mask._ If I would have just gone on patrol, none of this would have happened _. Laurel swallowed hard, got out of the car, and ignored the doorman_ _’s concerned expression as she nearly ran into her apartment building. She rushed up the stairs as fast as her heels would allow, silent tears streaming down her face. She fumbled with her keys as she walked, finding the right one and preparing to jam it into her lock before she even rounded the corner leading to her hallway. She took eight steps before she looked up and froze._

_There, sitting with his back against her door, was Cisco Ramon. She turned around. There was only so much she could take in one night, and seeing him after all of this was too much._ Sara and Nyssa will let me to stay with them _, she thought to herself. She heard him scramble to his feet._

_“Laurel.”_

_She took a deep breath and wiped the snot off of her nose before she turned around._ _“What?”_

_For a second, he looked as if she_ _’d punched him in the stomach. He quickly schooled his face into a neutral expression, but he looked tired and drawn. At this point, Laurel didn’t really care._

_“What are you doing here? You made it abundantly clear that you weren’t interested in being with me when you stood me up and ignored my phone calls.”_

_“It’s better this way.” He didn’t look at her eyes, and for a moment, Laurel wondered if there could be something more to this than him being an ass._

_“Don’t you think you should have figured that out before you asked me on a date? I bought this dress for_ you _._ _”_

_“It’s a great dress. But you should find someone else to wear that for. I’m not a good person to date right now.”_

_“Do you and my ex-boyfriend share scripts or something, or did you just paraphrase that from_ Twilight?”

_He didn_ _’t say anything, and she forced herself to walk up to him.  “Move. You’ve already wasted enough of my life.”_

_“Why are you making this so hard?”_

_An animalistic sound of exasperation burst out of Laurel_ _’s mouth. “Why the hell did I ever think—did I ever_ want _you to want me?_ _” Hot, angry tears squeeze out of the corners of her eyes, following the salty paths carved by their predecessors. “You’re just like every other asshole who’s ever hurt anyone. Actually, most of the assholes who have hurt me have at least been somewhere near my league, which you’re clearly not.”_

_“I wasn’t aware that you were a stuck-up bitch before I asked you out. Now that you’ve clarified that for me, it seems we’ve both dodged a bullet. Vapid and cruel isn’t my type, anyway.”_

_“I’m cruel?” Laurel shoved him hard against the door. “You’re the one who let me think that for once, I’d found someone who wouldn’t leave me worse than he’d found me.”_

_“Is that possible? Because ‘worse’ doesn’t seem like an option for you.” His hands pressed down on her shoulders, ready to push her away._

_Laurel opened her mouth to tell him to get his disgusting hands off of her, but his hands didn_ _’t push her away. Instead, they pulled her close before spinning her around, pressing her against the door. His body covered hers, the hands coming up to cradle her neck with power and surprising gentleness._

_She looked into his eyes. She_ _’d never seen them like this, and she felt that if she stared too long, they’d burn her. Her eyes flickered down to the lips that had been spewing filthy words at her only seconds ago, and nothing came into her mind but the incredible urge to kiss them. She did, but there was no softness in it. She bit; he bit back._

_He pressed her tighter into the door, his stubble rasping against her chin as his tongue entered her mouth. She fought him for dominance, the electric heat between them going to her head. She pulled away, looking down to see her key still in her hand._ _“I hate you,” she spat._

_“I know.”_

_“Move.”_

_This time, he listened. His hands dropped from her neck, and he stepped back. She spun around, jammed the key into the lock, and opened the door. He turned, ready to walk away, ready to let her have the last word. It made Laurel_ _’s skin crawl._

_“Where the hell do you think you’re going? We’re not finished.”_

_“Pardon me, Queen Bitch.”_

_Laurel bristled. She hated that word, but she still grabbed his hand, yanked him into her dark apartment, and slammed the door.  She hadn_ _’t even finished dropping her purse and taking off her shoes when his mouth was on hers again and he was pinning her against the wall. She flipped them, pressing him into the wall as she nipped his lips until they were swollen. When she pulled back for air, she grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, letting her hands fall to the surprisingly firm planes of his chest. The only light was from the city lights through her windows, and she could barely make out his outline. She found his hand, yanked him roughly down the hallway and kicked open her bedroom door._

_She pushed him down onto the bed, his belt providing a challenge in the darkness._

_“Clothes off,” he ordered, pushing her hands away from his jeans. She straightened, standing at the foot of the bed while his legs hung off the edge._

_“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snapped, but her hands traveled to the back of her neck, unhooking the hook and eye of her dress. The zipper was more difficult._

_“So slow,” he groaned, and she sneered into the darkness._

_“You could be useful and help.”_

_He finished kicking off his boxers, his nakedness almost undetectable in the darkness as he rose from the bed. Laurel jumped as his fingers found the zipper and yanked it down roughly. Savagely, he tugged the dress down as Laurel hurried to pull her arms out._

_“This dress was expensive!”_

_He pushed the dress past her hips to the floor and pulled her back against him, his breath tickling her neck as he spoke._ _“It’s mine. You bought it for me.”_

_“You’re a bastard,” she said, turning to face him. He hooked his fingers around the edges of her underwear._

_“Too much of a bastard to fuck?” He paused, awaiting her response._

_“No. Not tonight.”_

_“Is that a yes?”_

_“Dammit, Ramon, stop talking. Yes. I’m on the pill, too, before you ask, and I’m clean.”_

_“Me, too.”_

_“Then what are you waiting for?”_

_He pulled her underwear down, letting her kick them off as he unhooked her bra._

_In seconds, they were naked shadows. She grabbed his hand, pushing him onto the bed again before climbing in next to him. She didn_ _’t have time to settle before his lips found her neck. He bit, licked, sucked, and kissed, his hands lightly stroking the soft skin of her hips before they came up to ghost across her breasts._

_Every heartbeat sent a wave of need coursing through her body._

_He pulled back, and Laurel let out a moan from missing the sensations before a new one filled her body._

_“No foreplay?” She gasped as he slipped deep inside of her._

_“What did you think the last ten minutes were?” He reached down to touch her clit, and she rocked against his hand._

_“Shut up and move,” she ordered. With a groan, he obliged._

_The feeling of him dragging against her g-spot, teasing her, made noises that she hadn_ _’t heard in years worked their way out of her chest.  She squeezed her muscles around him, letting a satisfied smirk cross her face when he responded._

_“Fuck.” His voice was gravel rough as he picked up his pace, deepening his strokes and hitting just the right place inside of her._

_“We are,” she replied, bucking her hips against him, reaching up to rake her nails across his back, hooking her heels just above his tail-bone and pulling him deeper._

_“You’re horrible,” he told her, leaning down to cover her mouth with his. She responded eagerly, and for a moment, it was as if their mouths were mimicking their other actions._

_“Fucker,” she responded, reaching up to catch his earlobe in her teeth._

_“Does that make you the fuckee?” He tugged his head out of her grasp and pressed a kiss to her neck._

_“I like you better silent.”_

_He followed her orders, their bodies moving together as if they_ _’ve done this before, as if they were made to do this specifically with each other. The heat between them built until Laurel was sure that she’d burst into flames, emerging naked and new like a phoenix. He hit her spot again and she threw her head back into the pillow, screaming God’s name instead of his._

_He came just as she finished tumbling over the edge of the precipice, but it is her name that came out of his mouth like a prayer. They stayed wrapped in each other for a few minutes before she pushed him off of her._

_“I’m still mad at you,” she said. It was true. But after that tectonic plate-shifting orgasm, she was willing to hear him out. “What happened? Why did you change your mind?”_

_He rolled away from her and sat up on the edge of the bed. She could just make out a muscled back in the darkness. His head was bowed, his hand scrubbing across his forehead._ _“This doesn’t change anything. Forget it, Lance. This. . . This can’t happen again. Ever.”_

_Even though his words came out without malice, they still stung like barbs to Laurel_ _’s heart._

_“So you just wanted a fuck?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Well, good. Because you were less than spectacular. Get out.” The lies stung her mouth like acid, but it was mild compared to the ache in her chest._

_“Gladly.” He got dressed quickly. He crossed the threshold quickly, and Laurel knew he would keep walking if she didn’t say something._

_“Ramon?”_

_He froze._

_“Next time, the next girl—don’t promise her gold and give her ash.”_

_“I don’t think there’s going to be a next girl. Or a girl at all,” he said flatly. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t expect things to be like this.”_

_“That makes two of us. Just leave.”_

_He did, the door closing softly behind him. Inside of herself, Laurel felt another door slam shut, one that wouldn_ _’t even start to open for another year._

Tears prickle Laurel’s eyes as she emerges from the memory. She pads into the bathroom, splashes water on her face, and returns to her bedroom. She strips her sheets because they are the same ones from that night, and she can’t bear being reminded again. She forces herself to shake off the ghosts of that evening, telling herself that tomorrow (today, actually) is a new day with a new man. History won’t repeat itself, and Vibe would never treat her that way. She can’t imagine him ever being that mean to anyone, not without the best of reasons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Incident may have been revealed, but there's still more to come... Who else is excited for the identity reveal? Comments, kudos, subscriptions, bookmarks, carrier pigeons, smoke signals and cakes containing Carlos Valdes are always accepted with warmth and excitement. Okay, so maybe I'm a little optimistic about the cake, but a girl can dream, right?


	5. This Is War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canary and Vibe finally discover each other's identities. Meanwhile, bigger problems arise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are at the reveal. After about a million re-writings, I am finally satisfied enough to release this into the wild. I am amazed at the response this story has gotten so far, and sharing this story with you has been as much fun as writing it. As we move through the last few chapters together, know that this has been one of my favorite fandom experiences so far. Y'all are wonderful.

“It’s a big, big day!” Thea’s voice is chirpier than a bluebird’s, and Laurel groans into her pillow.

She has perched her phone on the ear not currently buried in the fluffy warmth of her pillow. It is unbelievably difficult to process the string of speech coming out of her friend’s mouth while keeping her eyes shut. It took her forever to fall asleep last night, and Laurel can feel it in the tension around her eye sockets. “I am meeting my boyfriend, Thea, not entering the Hunger Games.”

“You never know what could happen. Remember, this is  _your_ life, so there are no promises. Get up! We’re coming over in five minutes.”

“ _Why_?”

“Makeover, duh. Not that you don’t do a great job already, but you want to look extra good today, and we’re bored. Plus, Felicity feels really bad about not being able to get the guy from last night, so part of this is about distracting her. Think of it as charity.”

“Hey!”

“It’s true!”

“Are you bringing coffee?” Laurel can hear that Felicity is with Thea, and she bets that Sara and Nyssa are in the car, too.

“Of course. And pastries. What do you think we are, barbarians?”

“You’d better make me pretty,” she grumbles as she opens her eyes to the harsh brightness of the day.

 

Laurel barely has time to put on pants before the banging on her door begins.

“I gave you keys for a reason.” She opens the door anyway to see three eager faces and Nyssa’s knowing grin.

“What fun would that be?” Thea practically dances into the room, setting two bags of pastries on top of the layer of papers Laurel has collected on top of her kitchen table. Felicity follows with a drink carrier of coffees. Sara and Nyssa enter the room, arm in arm. As Laurel watches them, it’s difficult to tell who is supporting whom. Nyssa’s not even showing yet, but Sara treats her with delicate care.

They snatch pastries and coffee from the table and gather in the living room, Laurel not even speaking until half of her Americano is gone.

“I appreciate this, but it’s just a date. I can get ready for this myself.”

“Yeah, but it’s more fun with us. Besides, we kind of want to drop you off and creep on you a little. What are you two doing, anyway?”

“Well, we were going to do the whole meet on a deserted rooftop and take off our masks together thing, but because of the video that they got last night, the police are going to be looking for us. They didn’t interfere last night because they knew that they needed us, but since we didn’t deliver the bomber to them in a wrapped package, they’re kind of pissed.”

“I’ve got a few programs running. Hopefully, we’ll get something soon. The facial recognition for the kid in the video came up blank. That’s the problem with minors; they don’t have ID photos in the system.”

“Hey,” Laurel says, reaching out to take Felicity’s hand. “It’s not your fault.”

“It kind of is. I couldn’t help it, and I’m not going Oliver-level with the self-blame and doubt and wallowing, but it still sucks. But we’re not talking about this, so. . . Date? You have a date.”

“Yes. We’re going to meet at the scenic overlook on the south bank. There will be people there, but hopefully we’ll be able to pick each other out and then head to a deserted rooftop as a pair of perfectly-normal, unmasked people.”

“This is ridiculously complicated,” Sara remarks as she takes a sip of a drink that looks like it’s more whipped cream than coffee.

“I agree. Our way was easier.” Nyssa smiles contently as she reaches out to hold Sara’s hand.

“You basically kidnapped my sister for three days. I think your way is a little complicated,” Laurel replies dryly.

“I don’t see what is complicated. We stole each other.”

“As cute as Heart Eyes One and Heart Eyes Two over there are, I think it’s time that we start preparation.”

Laurel checks the clock on her wall. “I have two hours before I need to leave.”

“I know. We’re cutting it close.”

Laurel is fully capable of getting ready alone, but she allows Thea to direct the show because it makes her happy. She allows herself to be shoved into the shower, reminded to shave her legs—as if she really needed to be reminded  _today_ of all days—and blow-dried within an inch of her life.

“Who made that thing?” Laurel gestures to Thea’s blow-dryer as Thea turns it off. “Was it the same people who make those industrial hand dryers that make your skin look all wrinkly?”

“Don’t be a baby, Laurel. Sara, Nyssa, where are we on the outfit?”

“Don’t worry, Thea. We have it covered.”

Sara holds up a pair of black skinny jeans and an oversized white t-shirt with a low-dipping v-neck. Nyssa reaches into Laurel’s wardrobe and pulls out a pair of black ankle boots with spiky heels.

Thea nods briskly. “Nice. Laurel, are you thirsty? Because you’re not going to destroy your lip stain after Felicity puts it on, so it’s now or never.” She hands Laurel a bottle of water, which Laurel takes a few gulps of before she sets it down. In the periphery, she sees Felicity approaching her with a bag of makeup.

While Felicity applies a myriad of skin products to her face, Laurel closes her eyes and tries to tamp down the jittery, anxious feeling in her stomach.  _What if he knows someone whose attacker I helped defend? What if he hates me? What if the real him is Carter Bowen_ _’s better-looking personality doppleganger?_

“Hey, what’s with the resting bitch face?”

“Huh?”

Laurel’s eyes pop open as Felicity attacks the hollows beneath her cheekbones with some contouring powder. She sees Thea sitting casually on her bedside table, studying her as if she’s something in a petri dish.

“I just . . . I really hope that he doesn’t hate me.”

“Who could hate you? You’re gorgeous Laurel! Sweet, kind, considerate and ballsy Laurel,” Felicity tells her earnestly.

“Well, if you remember, you kind of hated me at first.”

“That’s just because I was sure that Dad was out to get Mom’s goodies.” Felicity makes a face, and Laurel can feel her own face mimicking it.

She does not need the image of her father going anywhere near Donna’s  _goodies_. ” “Seriously? Dad?”

Felicity shrugs. “You don’t know the losers that she dated when she still lived in Vegas. Her poor taste was the stuff of legends. I wanted to forge her choices concerning men into a ring, go on an epic quest, and cast it into the fires of a volcano.”

“Wow, Felicity. Tell us how you really feel,” Thea enthuses sarcastically.

Felicity shrugs. “It’s the truth.”

When Laurel is dressed, she is finally allowed to look in the mirror. Her hair is softly curled, the front softly twisted back to give her a romantic look. Her lips are the color of holly berries, and her eyes look greener thanks to the grey, smoky eyeshadow Felicity has applied. The t-shirt makes her look effortlessly sexy, and the pants hug the curve of her ass in a wonderful way.

“Well? Was this worth it?”

Laurel folds Thea into a hug. “Yes. Thank you, Thea.”

“You’re welcome. Cupid has struck again,” she says with a smug grin. “Now get in the car. We’re getting there early so we can find a good parking spot.”

Laurel frowns. “You are incredibly sweet, and then you go and do something incredibly creepy. Please tell me you won’t hover the whole time, peering through binoculars like stalkers.”

“Don’t worry. We’re leaving after ten minutes,” Felicity promises. “But we want to make sure that you’re okay.”

“I don’t know about this. Vibe is just now revealing his identity to me. I don’t know if he wants you guys to know.”

Felicity quirks an eyebrow. “Laurel, I’ve known since the second time I met him. Identifying someone wearing sunglasses is not beyond the range of my abilities. And Barry knows who he is, so it’s only a matter of time before he lets it slip.”

“I don’t know. . .”

“Well, deal with it. We’ve made you look even hotter than usual, so this is how you’re paying us back.”

Laurel makes a face, but stands up and grabs her purse. Both of her phones are safely tucked inside, along with a tiny Smith and Wesson that she always keeps in there for protection. If it is possible, she becomes even more nervous as she walks out to the car. She slips into the front seat beside Thea, her purse on her lap, and turns on the music to distract her as they pull out into the street.

Her purse vibrates, and she unzips it to see that her Canary phone has a new message.

**Please tell me that you** **’re as nervous as I am—Vibe.**

**Oh, thank God. I thought I was just being silly—Canary.**

**I think we both are. Why are we so scared of each other?—Vibe.**

**I don** **’t know. I think it’s because I’ve never had this much to lose before—Canary.**

**You** **’ll never lose me. Whatever happens—whoever you are, you’re stuck with me.—Vibe**

**Even if I** **’m secretly some weirdo candle blogger?—Canary.**

**Even if you** **’re a candle blogger. Although I’m not sure how many of our candlelit activities we’ll be able to blog about without getting in trouble—Vibe.**

“Ooh, sexy.”

“Thea! Eyes on the road.”

“We’re at a red light. But seriously, how can you be nervous? You guys are clearly made for each other.”

“I know. I know. It’s just hard to be optimistic when historically, my love life has been a series of disasters.”

“Sometimes, Laurel, you open your mouth and Dad comes out. He’s great and all, but he’s not always right. Just let yourself be happy, okay? Just get excited and forget about all of those what-ifs, okay?”

“I’ll try.”

“Follow your heart and happiness will follow you,” Nyssa says sagely.

“Is that a proverb you learned in Nanda Parbat?”

Nyssa smiles mischievously. “No, but I find that fortune cookies give very good advice.”

Laurel opens her mouth to say something else, but snaps it shut when she sees that they are pulling into the parking lot a short walk away from the overlook.

Felicity reaches forward from the backseat and places a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Go get him—”

“—if you call me “tiger,” Felicity, I cannot be responsible for what I’ll do to you.”

“Right. Because of the boxers. I wasn’t even thinking about that, but hey, it fits. But I’ll just say go get him, then.”

Laurel looks over her shoulder and smiles. She looks down at the Canary phone still in her hands. She’s five minutes early. “I’m five minutes early, so I’m just going to—”

Thea reaches over and unbuckles her seatbelt for her. “You’re going to get out of the car. Go. Have fun. We love you.”

“My legs are shaking,” Laurel admits.

“That’s  _before_  the date? Guy must be good,” Sara quips.

“Do you ever stop thinking about sex?”

“Sometimes. I have to sleep.”

Laurel makes a face and pops her door handle. “On that note, I’ll see you all later.”

As she gets out of the car and shuts the door, Laurel hears Sara’s laugh.

“It always works.”

She turns around, smiles sweetly, and holds up her middle finger before she continues towards the overlook.

* * *

 

The only people at the overlook are a middle-aged father with his seven-year-old daughter. She sighs, partially in relief that she can delay the moment of truth a second longer, and partially in nervousness that he’s not going to show up at all.

They picked a beautiful place to meet; the overlook is situated to present a beautiful view of the river, which has gone down over the last week thanks to the mercifully dry weather. The soft breeze blows her hair and kisses her face, and Laurel can see distant mountains beyond the north bank. This is one of the few places in the city where it’s easy to remember that nature exists beyond the city. To occupy herself, she pulls a few quarters out of her purse and feeds them to the coin-operated binoculars. She alternates between watching the boats and the mountains. The sunlight warms her shoulders through the crisp fall air; for a moment, Laurel remembers being just like the little girl who is here with her father. She smiles softly, remembering coming here and going for ice cream after bringing home a good report card. Maybe soon, she’ll be bringing home something— _someone_ —of a bit more significance.

“Canary?”

She smiles when she hears his voice. The fluttering in her stomach is so strong that she almost doesn’t turn around. “Guilty as charged,” she replies as she turns.

His hair is down, falling in soft waves to his shoulders. He’s wearing a pair of well-fitting jeans and a purple dress shirt, which—God help her—he’s rolled up to his elbows, revealing those forearms which always distract her. His face, though, is what seems to stick her feet to the ground.

“ _Lance?_ _”_

_“Ramon?”_

They name each other at the same time, and then neither of them speaks at all.

Laurel’s eyes take in his face—Ramon’s face, Vibe’s face—the  _same_  face. Her mind starts comparing memories, overlaying Ramon and Vibe until they blur together to form one person. Vibe in the copy room, Ramon scooping her off of the cold ground, stitching up her wounds. She doesn’t know how she didn’t see it before. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this stupid before in my entire life. How did we not notice? Oh, my God; I took a  _selfie_  with you!”

He stares at her, blinks, squints a little, and then bursts into deep, vivid laughter.

“It’s not funny!” She shoves his shoulder, feeling that  _yes, this shoulder is very familiar_.

“It kind of is.”

“It’s not!”

He’s still laughing. “As far as blindness goes, that guy in Hell’s Kitchen has nothing on us,” he wheezes.

“Calm down,” she says, her hands going to his shoulders.  _Hot damn_. She still feels the spark that she felt every time she touched him as Vibe. The touch, the muscle beneath her fingers, brings back another memory.  _“For what it’s worth, I didn’t expect things to be like this.”_

 “I framed it. It’s seriously on my bedside table.”

“What?” His words jar her out of the memory, but they don’t soothe the sting.

“The selfie,” he says, looking at his shoes. “I have a selfie with Laurel Lance on my bedside table.” His brow wrinkles as if he’s slightly disturbed.

Laurel feels her hands tighten into fists at her sides. “You think that’s bad? I slept in Cisco Ramon’s boxers last night. That said, I think we have bigger problems.” She studies his face as she tries to keep herself from slapping him.

The glint in his eyes dies as he takes in her words and her expression. “Shit. _I_ _’m_  the asshole after—”

“—after Tommy. Yes.” She watches his face drain.

“Canary,” he starts softly. “ _Laurel_. I—I really don’t have words to tell you how sorry I am about that night. Even before this—before I met the Black Canary, before she— _you_ —kissed me in that stairwell, I was sorry.”

“You didn’t act like it.”

“I couldn’t. I was trying to keep you safe.”

“By standing me up and then showing up at my apartment just to sleep with me and then being a total jerk about the whole thing?”

“ _Preciosa—_ ”

“—I don’t care how sexy that sounds or how many languages you speak. You’re still a dick in all of them.” Her voice is lowered to a hiss as she watches the father and daughter laugh together.

He frowns. “I deserve that. But what happened that night. . . None of it was about you. If I could have, I would have been there in that restaurant with you, eating sushi and doing everything in my power to win a second date with you. I would have walked you up to your apartment and kissed you goodnight. As soon as you closed the door, I would have fist pumped and probably whisper-yelled something really lame like ‘Booyah! I just had a date with Laurel Lance!’ You would have opened the door, called me a dork, and then said you’d see me tomorrow at work. I wouldn’t have slept that night, and the next day, I would have asked you out again.”

Laurel swallows thickly. “I would have said yes. Why didn’t you?”

He takes a deep breath. “It’s a long story. The short version is that I was kidnapped and they threatened someone I love. I realized that the idea of you being the person that people used to get to me was just unthinkable. The only thing worse than pushing you away was the idea of you being hurt or killed because of something that had nothing to do with you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Obviously. But you weren’t Black Canary, Super Hot Badass to me. You were Laurel Lance, dream girl. Laurel Lance, sunshine in one person. Laurel Lance, who likes blueberry muffins but not blueberry pancakes because of texture issues.” He tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear, then looks at his hand as if it has a mind of its own. Laurel can’t deny that the warm brush of his fingers against her temple feels comforting and familiar. “And I wasn’t ever going to be responsible for someone  hurting the most wonderful person to ever walk this earth.”

“Someone other than you, you mean.” She lets out a slow breath before something occurs to her. “How long had you been in—” she looks around and lowers her voice “—the  _business_  when you asked me out?”

“Three months,” he replies immediately.

“It was your first kidnapping,” she says slowly. Her hand runs over a scar on her forearm. The first six months after she got it, the skin was puckered together in a horrible red mound of tissue that stretched from her right elbow halfway down her arm. With time and patient babying, it has become a raised white line. “I never told you how I got this one, did I?”

He narrows his eyes and presses his lips together slightly as his head cocks slightly to the side. “No. . .”

“It was three weeks after I became the Black Canary. My suit was pretty much just leathers from a biker shop, a homemade mask, and a baton I ordered online. I had the brilliant idea to take on a guy in an alley. Within a few seconds, he had thrown my baton in a dumpster, and I had my fists against his strength and a knife. I barely got out alive.”

His brow is creased unnaturally. “That’s horrible.”

“I’m not finished. I was too proud to tell the Arrow—to tell  _anyone_  what happened—and so I went home. I stopped the bleeding, cleaned it out, and then I super-glued the two sides together. It wasn’t pretty.”

“I’d imagine not.”

“Look, I’m not as good with analogies as my sister-in-law, but what I’m trying to say is that you made a rookie mistake. You f—” she hears the little girl laugh and adjusts her language just in time “—you messed up.”

“Laurel, I—”

“I’m still not finished,” she says flatly.

He stares at his feet, and Laurel deems him sufficiently chastised.

“I brought fists to a knife fight and I got a scar. You got in a fight and put armor on a bystander, never minding the fact that she didn’t need it and that it hurt more than it helped. But both of these were rookie mistakes. It just sucks that you made a mistake and I got hurt, too.” Tentatively, Laurel reaches out a hand to cup Cisco’s cheek. “You were really stupid. But I’ve been stupid before, too.”

His eyes, warm and brown, stare into hers with just the barest hint of hope. “What does this mean?”

“It means that you get to prove to me that you’re not who I thought you were and that you  _are_ who I know you are.” Even with just one hand pressed against his cheek, Laurel can feel the tension leaving his body.

The glint of hope in his eyes changes to determination in a single blink. “Then you’re stuck with me. I can’t take back what I did, and I will always be sorry for it.  I know that this—all of this this—isn’t really what either of us was expecting, but we fell in love as Vibe and the Black Canary, and I’m not willing to give up on that. I don’t think I could even think about doing that at this point.”

“You don’t?”

“Can you?” He reaches up a hand to cup her cheek.

Laurel finds herself melting into his touch. “No. Let’s stop talking about the past for now.” Tentatively, she leans in and brushes her lips softly against his.  _Familiar. Warm. Soft_. She feels him smile against her lips, and then he is pressing his lips against hers harder, kissing her like she’s the last person he’ll ever love.

“Eww! Dad, look!” 

They pull away, sharing a smile before they turn to look at the little girl who is pointing and scowling. Her dad pushes her arm down and sends them an embarrassed smile, but they just laugh.

He—Vibe, Ramon, Cisco?—reaches out and takes her hand in his. “There’s a rooftop around here with a picnic basket and a bottle of sparkling cider. You interested?”

“Definitely.”

Together, they walk to his car, and Laurel is convinced that she must have entered some sort of alternate reality. It’s the only explanation. This idea is furthered when she sees how immaculate his car is. It smells like mango air freshener and there’s not a candy wrapper in sight.

“I’m impressed, Ramon.”

“It needed cleaned anyway and I had someone to impress,” he says, ducking his head as he buckles his seatbelt. She follows suit, and he drives them through the city. They don’t turn on the radio and neither speaks for a few minutes.

“Are you trying to process this, too?”

“That, and kicking myself for being so incredibly stupid. I mean, you were wearing  _sunglasses_. That’s not much of a disguise.”

“Says the woman who was wearing a wig and a strip of fabric across her eyes. I am really disappointed in myself for not recognizing you sooner.”

“Maybe we saw what we wanted to see,” Laurel says quietly.

“Maybe,” he agrees. “I don’t think that you would have kissed me in that stairwell if you knew who I was.”

“And I don’t think that you would have loaned Lance a pair of your boxers.”

“Talk about some Twilight Zone stuff, am I right?”

Laurel laughs and nods. “You read my mind.”

“It just keeps getting freakier. I kind of like it,” he says as he pulls into a parking garage. They get out of the car, and he leads them to an elevator. Laurel waits until the doors close, then lets out a breath.

“Expecting another ex-boyfriend?” He winks at her, and she feels a familiar warmth spread through her body. He has no idea what he does to her.

“Just making sure. At least you’re not in a blanket this time,” she quips, reaching out to take his hand before she realizes what she’s doing. “Where are we, anyway?”

“This is Avery Industries. There’s a gala going on today, but this is actually the service elevator, so we’re avoiding a lot of traffic. The roof is closed to everyone else but us—my brother Dante works here; he hooked us up.”

“Aren’t rooftops like the only place scenic enough in skyscrapers to  _have_  a gala?”

“You’d think so, but apparently someone had too much to drink last year and almost fell off the roof, so they’re keeping it to the top floor r to avoid any accidents this year.”

“Wow. Who knew?”

“Right?”

The elevator dings, and then they’re stepping out on the top floor. He leads her down a hallway to a stairwell, ignoring the men in tuxes and ladies in dresses who give them strange looks. They climb a flight of stairs together, and Laurel almost loses her breath as he leads her out onto the roof.

An incredibly cushy red blanket is spread out facing the most scenic view on the roof, and a picnic basket and ice bucket sit next to it. Laurel stares out over the city and watches the sun reflect off of the shiny windows and the river.

He leads her over to the blanket and unpacks the picnic, setting the platters along the edges of the blanket. There are chocolate-covered strawberries, a cheese tray, a loaf of crusty bread with some sort of fancy butter, and, to Laurel’s great delight, some chocolate-filled croissants.

“I thought the bakery was still closed.”

“I called in a favor,” he says with a smile. “Cheese cube?”

It is awkward at first, but they settle into a conversation as they eat their picnic. At first, all they talk about is hero business, and when she calls him Vibe out of habit, he cocks his head to the side.

“We should probably not call each other Vibe and Canary all the time. It might arouse some suspicion.”

“Well, I’m not calling you Ramon anymore. It just feels wrong to call the person you love by their last name.”

He grins, and she admires the way that his smile crinkles the outer corners of his eyes. “I thought that Honeybun and Muffin were perfectly good nicknames,” he remarks lightly.

She elbows him lightly, rolling her eyes. “No.”

“Then just call me Cisco. It’s kind of my name, Laurel,” he tells her, and she feels a little silly, but the sound of his lips forming her name sends a little shiver through her. “Strawberry?” He holds a strawberry to her lips.

She takes a bite, moaning at the sweet juiciness. The juice runs down her chin, almost dripping onto her shirt before he catches it with his thumb. He brings his thumb to his mouth, sucking the sweetness off of it. Laurel stares at him.

“What? You’re wearing white—”

“If you expect me not to jump you, you can’t do that again.”

He bites off the other half of the strawberry, discarding the stem as he waggles his eyebrows. “What if I said I had no such expectations?”

“Then I would do this.” She pushes him back on the blanket and straddles his hips, leaning down to capture his mouth with hers.

 His hands rest on her hips, and he gently flips them and begins pressing kisses to her neck. He stops to suck lightly on her pulse point.

“What is this, high school? If you give me hickeys, you die,”

He gives her a quick peck on the lips. “What a way to go.”

She laughs as he starts placing sweet kisses all over her face.

“I have a few ideas for my headstone. ‘Here lies Cisco. He died doing what he loves best.’” He presses kisses on her right cheek and temple.   
“‘When we were together, I felt breathless. Now, I actually am.’”

“Did you seriously just make a Lemony Snicket reference while making out with me?”

He grins and rolls off of her. “Did you seriously just get my Lemony Snicket reference while I was making out with you?”

They are lying side by side, noses inches apart, both pink and out of breath and deliriously happy. Laurel is shifting to snuggle into his side when a familiar voice makes her jump.

“Well, it looks like you two are off to a Bad Beginning.”

* * *

 

The instant she places his voice, her hand slips into her pocket to retrieve her Canary phone. She keeps it at her side as she and Vibe roll over and sit up to see the intruder.

His face is gaunt, his cheeks hollow and his eyes sunken. He looks more like an old man than the teenager she saved at the Kord. He’s wearing a bomb vest and carries a joystick in his hand with a button on top that he’s pressing as if his life depends on it.  _It does_ , Laurel realizes.

“You two are quite easy to identify.” The boy moves his mouth with an emotionless expression. He cocks his head, and Laurel can barely make out an earwig with a clear plastic clip attached to his right ear.

The bad guy— Cisco has been referring to him as the Technobomber—must be relaying his villain monologue via Bluetooth.  _That_ _’s a new one_.

“I was surprised. I mean, you might as well be Superman and Aquaman with those disguises.” The boy pauses again.

 Laurel concentrates on sneakily tapping out a text message to Felicity. Her spelling is probably not the best, but it should get the message across. She hopes it says  **SOS at Avery Industries roof. Bomber using hostage.** She presses send and hopes it’s not jumbled.

“I wanted to find you to tell you congratulations. You put up more of a fight than I expected.” The boy licks his lips nervously, and Laurel notices beads of sweat along his brow. “I mean, I obviously could have detonated the bombs any time I wanted to, and that cute little camera loop fooled me for about three minutes, but you so intrigued me that I had to let it play out.”

“I thought you were focused on Madeline. She called you and you got what you wanted,” Cisco says, crossing his arms. “So what do you want now, and why won’t you face us instead of using innocents as carrier pigeons?”

“He’s laughing at you,” the boy says, and the tone of his voice when he’s not parroting a megalomaniac’s speech reminds Laurel that he is some mother’s son, someone’s boyfriend, some girl’s older brother.

The boy clears his throat. “Maddie needed to learn some respect, but you think I want her back? Ridiculous. I just wanted to embarrass her, make her beg a little.”

“I’d tell you that you’re one sick puppy, but you already know that,” Cisco spits.

“The sickest,” he replies. “And as for why I won’t face you, well. . . Who says so?”

The last three words remind Laurel eerily of responsive readings in church—one voice saying them, a second voice repeating immediately. A man steps out of the door to the roof. He is dressed sharply in a black suit with a black shirt, black shoes, and a black bowtie. His hair is dark brown, his features attractive yet hard, and his chin slightly pointed. His hair is slicked back, and Laurel thinks briefly of a high school presentation of  _Phantom of the Opera_. She slides her hand into her pocket, gripping her Canary phone.

“Go inside, Jamie. Listen and hide. Wait for my signal,” the man orders. “If they try to hurt me, blow the place up. You know that I have contingencies to ensure you cooperate.” The boy nods, but shoots Laurel and Cisco one last look.  _Save me._

“Great. Now that you’re done playing ventriloquist, do you care to tell us why the hell you’re into blowing people up?”

He flashes them a grin.“They always told me I could be anything,” he chimes.

“So you became the Technobomber?”

The guy strokes his chin in a move straight out of a Bond film. Laurel resists the urge to roll her eyes at the cliche.

“Technobomber. . . I really like that. Thank you.”

Cisco makes a face. “But why?”

“I love story time,” the Technobomber muses. He turns and begins pacing side to side in front of them, giving Laurel just enough time to slip her phone out of her pocket and hide it against her thigh. “Once upon a time, there was a happy, average kid. Let’s call him—let’s call  _me—_ Timmy. Well, little Timmy had a fine home life: love, affection, ice cream for breakfast some mornings. It wasn’t bad at all. And Timmy grew up to be a successful college graduate, with a girlfriend and a baby on the way. Timmy—who, well, wouldn’t be called Timmy past college, so let’s say Tim—and his girlfriend were very, very happy.” Timmy the Technobomber turns back around.

Laurel dials Felicity’s number, turning down the volume so the bomber won’t hear Felicity answering. Hopefully, Felicity will hear the conversation.

The man pauses for a second, and Laurel faintly hears Felicity’s hello sounding from against her pants leg. The man turns around, and fear grips Laurel’s chest tightly when she thinks that he heard it, too. Instead, he continues speaking.

“So he, his girlfriend, and his unborn child were destined for happiness. But then they were driving past S.T.A.R. Labs one day, and it just so happened that something exploded and there was a car accident. And wouldn’t you know it? Tim’s girlfriend died instantly, but his torture was much, much worse. He woke up in the hospital after nearly dying multiple times because the technology around him would just stop working—IV pumps, the ventilator, the anesthesia machine in one particularly memorable instance—and eventually discovered that he could control technology.”

“You’re a technopath,” Cisco says slowly. “That’s an awesome power. Too bad it’s wasted on you.”

“Well, apparently you have the power of snarky comments, so don’t be jealous,” the Technobomber remarks.

“Why bombs?”

“Seems silly, doesn’t it? You imagine bombs as sticks of dynamite with a spring and a stopwatch—not very high-tech. But we’ve all gone digital, and it’s so much more time effective to kill people in one blast instead of taking them out by exploding their individual Apple Watches and Fitbits. I wish Google Glass would have caught on—now  _that_  could have been fun.”

“So what? Your girlfriend died and you got powers, so now you naturally want to kill innocent people? My boyfriend died and you know what I did? I spiraled, and then I pulled myself the hell up by my bootstraps and started helping people.”

He starts a slow clap. “Well, goody for you. I kind of did the opposite. I did well for a while, started dating again, and then that went to shit and so I thought to myself, ‘Tim,’ —well, that’s not really my name, but still— ‘Tim, you know what would make you feel better? If everyone else knew what it was like to feel like this.’”

“Your world exploded, and now you want everyone else to explode, too.”

“And bingo was his name-o! I like this one. I would say he’s a keeper, but somehow, I don’t think you two are going to have time for long-term commitments. It’s not that I particularly hate you two—I just want to send a message to the rest of your crew to back off.” He approaches the edge of the building, nods to himself, and goes back towards the door to the stairwell. He grabs a duffel from inside the door, unzips it, and pulls out a harness.

“You know, you heroes must think that we villains are some sort of gods, the way that we keep on beating you.” He starts stepping into the harness. “But we put our pants on one leg at a time.”

Cisco groans as the Technobomber tightens the harness and clips a carabiner attached to a coiled piece of rope to a loop on the front. He clips the other end of the rope to a piece of railing, giving it a light tug.

“I’d really love to stay, but I’ve got to dash. Places to go, more bombs to plan, a lackey to replace. It all gets exhausting.”

With that, he jumps off the side of the building. Cisco rushes to the railing while Laurel presses the phone to her ear.

“Oracle? Did you get that?”

“All of it. Are you guys okay?”

“We’re fine, but there’s a kid with a bomb that we need to go stop. You guys take care of him—he just jumped off the east side of the building with some climbing equipment.”

“Digg, Arrow, and Arsenal are just pulling up. They’ll get him. I’ll send Flash to help you guys.”

“Thanks.”

She hangs up the phone and grabs Cisco’s hand. “Come on. We have to help that kid—keep him from detonating the bomb.”

“I don’t know if we can, but we can try,” he says grimly. “Next time, we’re just going to go for burgers. Nothing eventful ever happens when you go for burgers.”

They head into the stairwell, rushing down the stairs to find that Jamie is already in the center of massive ballroom that has been created in the top floor. Twinkle lights and gauzy curtains are everywhere, as are well-dressed women who are dabbing at their mascara tears with their dates’ pocket squares. Apparently, they also recognize Jamie from the footage the press got a hold of from the previous night’s adventure.

“I-I don’t want to hurt anybody,” the boy says, “But he—the Arrow has him, but his men are watching my mom and my sister. I don’t have a choice,” he says brokenly.

“You always have a choice,” Laurel says, walking into the middle of the room with her chin high. Cisco follows her, his hands extended in a calm-down-man sort of way.

“I don’t.”

“Do you remember me? That night at the bridge, I saw you.”

“I know. You saved my life, and I’m grateful for it. I never got to thank you—either of you.”

“We don’t need to be thanked. What we need you to do is to keep your hand on that button until we can get this think safely off of you, okay?” Vibe starts towards him, and Jamie backs away.

“I  _can_ _’t_. Stay back!”

“Okay. Okay. Then we’re just going to send these folks downstairs, so that they can go home to their mothers and sisters and kids, Jamie. Can you do that? Is he still talking to you?”

“No.”

“Good. That means that the Arrow has his communication device, which means that he can’t contact his people. Nobody is going to hurt your family.”

“That’s worse! If they don’t hear from him, they’ll kill my family.”

“Okay, then we’ll figure something else out. Now, can these people go downstairs?”

Jamie’s eyes comb over the crowd, resting on a heavily-pregnant woman in a midnight blue dress. “Okay. Everyone get out of here, except for you two.”

“Good. Thank you,” Laurel says evenly. She is impressed by the crowd of people here—they move slowly and carefully towards the stairwells, not a single one uttering a word of protest. When the last person has entered the stairwell, she lets out a small sigh of relief.

“That was good. You did a good thing, Jamie,” she tells him with a smile. “Now, would you let us try to take that thing off of you?”

“I already told you that I won’t! I can’t! So stop asking or I’ll end it all right now.” His voice cracks, and tears start running down his cheeks.

Cisco steps in front of Laurel, holding his arm out in front of her like a mother whose child is in the passenger seat. She squeezes his arm reassuringly and gently presses it down before she steps towards Jamie again.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “This is really hard for you and I’m probably making it worse. Do you want to talk about your family? What are they like?”

Jamie starts pacing, his free hand coming up to scrub through his hair. “Why do you  _care_? I have to kill you to save my family and you’re acting like you want everything to be okay for me.”

“Because she does. We both do, Jamie. Look, we’ve seen a lot. We know that not everything can be black and white, and we know that there are hard decisions to make. But if there’s one thing that I’ve learned today, it’s that you just have to trust people sometimes, even if it’s scary.” Cisco reaches out and twines his fingers through Laurel’s.

“Trusting you won’t make a difference. You can’t find those people who have my mom and my sister—he’ll never tell you, and I don’t even know where they are. All I know is that he let me talk on the phone to them, and they were  _so scared._ And this is my fault—I was at the Kord that night, I ran off after you saved me, and I ran right into him. He acted like he was nice—like he cared, like he was trying to help.” Jamie lets out a dry sound that sounds equally like a sob and a laugh.

“You can’t blame yourself for this, Jamie—”

“—Let them go.” The Flash stands in front of them. His hands are on his hips, his shoulders tall and confident as he faces Jamie.

“What the hell?”

“I know that man was hurting you, but that doesn’t mean that you can hurt my friends.”

Jamie’s hand returns to his hair, tugging at a clump above his right ear. A sinking feeling takes root in Laurel’s stomach, and she opens her mouth to warn the Flash to get out of there when Jamie cuts her off.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Laurel doesn’t see Jamie’s finger leave the button, but she feels the familiar sensation of hurtling through the air at Flash speed. Her back connects with something hard seconds before a wave of heat and pressure washes over her. For a moment, she doesn’t move or breathe. Her ears ring, her body doesn’t cooperate, and the edges of her vision start to darken. She tells herself that Cisco is okay.  _He has to be_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say it with me: Wednesday is not that far away. Wednesday is not that far away :)


	6. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who doesn't love hospital chapters?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, I am BLOWN AWAY by all of your comments and kudos. This story seemed to explode after the last chapter, and you all have been super sweet to me. I'm sorry I didn't get to reply to last chapter's comments until today, and I'm sorry this update is so late in the day. I'm also sorry for any errors that crop up in this chapter. 
> 
> I'm really close with my sister and she has reached a critical time in her battle with cancer. She's kicking its ass, but the anxiety that comes with loving a cancer patient more than life itself is taking its toll on me. But enough of me. Y'all are awesome and wonderful. This chapter's title (and the story's title) comes from the song "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" as performed by Elefant. I feel like it's kind of Laurel's theme song. Give it a listen if you fancy. I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I've enjoyed hearing from you.

Laurel awakens to a warm hand cupping her face.

“Laurel. Laurel, can you hear me? Barry, can you get a signal?”

“I’ll check. If not, I’ll run for help once this leg heals.”

She opens her eyes to see Cisco’s worried face. She frowns at the blood that is dripping down his hairline, the scratches on his cheeks, and the layer of soot that has settled over him.

“Cisco,” she says, blinking.

“I’m here. You’re going to be okay, Laurel.”

“I’m fine,” she says. She’s cold, but she doesn’t understand the look in his eyes, why they are in the stairwell, or the pressure she feels in her abdomen. She tries to sit up.

“Don’t do that,” he tells her. His voice sounds so raw and raspy that it makes her hurt. Distantly, she hears Barry talking to someone on the phone.

“Why?” She pushes against his hands on her shoulders. She wants to look at him properly.

“You’re hurt. Barry managed to get us down to the stairwell before the explosion took us out, but it splintered the door and you got the bulk of the shrapnel. Just look at me, okay?”

Laurel follows his orders, staring into his eyes. She doesn’t particularly relish looking down. She’s not feeling any pain right now, and she’s always liked that function of being in shock. “I thought—I thought I’d lost you,” she tells him. “Again. I can’t do that again—it’ll break me.”

“Hey,” he says, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’m staying. And even if I couldn’t, I have more faith in you than that. Laurel Lance is never going to break.”

“Maybe you should do our commercials for Tempest,” she jokes, frowning when she tastes blood in the back of her throat. “How are you doing?”

He strokes her hair back. “I feel like a peach that somebody just dropped down an escalator, but other than that. . .”

“The truth, Ramon.”

“ _Ouch_. You see what I have to deal with, Barry?”

Laurel turns her head to face the Flash, who has pulled his mask off to reveal a face that looks incredibly young. “Your best friend is a  _teenager_?”

Barry sighs. “Maybe I should grow a beard. I’m in my twenties, thank you very much.”

Cisco snickers and frowns, pressing a hand to his chest.

“You okay, man?”

“Yeah, probably just some smoke inhalation. How are you?”

“Broken leg, but it’s not compound. Probably a bruised spleen, a few broken ribs. I’ll be good in an hour or so, but Digg, Speecy and Arsenal are on the way up. The Arrow is taking care of the Technobomber.”

“Well, thanks for saving our asses,” Cisco says, reaching up the stairwell to clap his hand on the Flash’s shoulder.

“Yes. Thanks. . . Barry.”

He nods at her. “I’m Barry Allen, also known as the Flash, also known as Cisco’s best friend.”

She nods back with an amused smile. “Laurel Lance, also known as the Black Canary, also known as Cisco’s girlfriend.”

Barry studies them and laughs. “Laurel  _Lance_. As in Nemesis Lance. As in Lance, the Great and Powerful Harpy. As in Hot Pants Lance. Oh my God. This is too good.”

“’The Great and Powerful  _Harpy_ _’_?”

Cisco glares at Barry. “You’re dead to me. Dead.”

Laurel laughs shallowly. “At least you were creative. I mostly just called you Evil Spawn, That Bastard, and the Douche with the Candy Fetish.” She smiles at him sweetly, which usually is only a step less intimidating than the Soul Crusher.

He coughs, and the sound is raspy and yet somehow thick. Laurel doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t have time to ponder it when she hears footsteps in the stairwell below them.

“Up here,” Barry calls loudly, and Digg and Arsenal appear.

“Laurel first,” Cisco and Barry say at the same time.

She can’t help it any longer and looks down at her abdomen, regretting it instantly as her stomach starts to churn. Cisco wasn’t lying; she did get plenty of shrapnel. The most notable piece is an inch-thick stake of what used to be the wooden door. It’s lodged in her belly, a few inches above her right hip, and blood and ash have turned her white-t-shirt black, grey and red.

Digg bends down and scoops her gently into his arms, and she is really glad that she’s not feeling any pain yet. Arsenal hauls Barry into a fireman’s carry, much to his protest, and Speedy slings Cisco’s arm around her shoulders after they discover that he is really wobbly on his feet.

The blast took out the power to the entire building, and the backup generators do not power the elevators. As a result, they have to take the stairs all the way down and sneak through a side exit to avoid being questioned by the numerous police and reporters who have shown up at the scene. With each of Digg’s steps, a little more feeling starts to trickle into Laurel, and by the time she is laid out next to Barry and Cisco in the back of the van, she’s biting her lip to keep from screaming.

Cisco has propped himself up on one of his elbows and snuggled into her side. He is running his fingers through her hair soothingly. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to the hospital—we’re almost there. It’s going to be okay.”

“See? He always says the nicest things when I’m hurt,” Barry remarks from Laurel’s other side, and she laughs until the pain squeezes tears out of her eyes.

“How much longer until—” Cisco coughs into his hand, and Laurel is horrified when she sees the dribble of blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. “I—can’t—breathe.” His breath is coming out in horrible, wheezing gasps.

“Cisco!”

He slumps onto her, still. Not moving. Not breathing. The splinter jams deeper into her from where he’s landed on it.

“Help him! You have to do something,” she says, pushing him over onto his back despite the horrible pain that grips her body from the movement. She presses her fingers to his neck, relieved to feel a pulse but panicked when she realizes that his chest isn’t rising or falling. “He’s not breathing,” she tells Barry, who has pushed himself into a sitting position on Cisco’s other side. She leans over to start rescue breathing, but her head is swimming and she can’t seem to orient herself.

 Barry presses a hand to her shoulder. “Laurel, you need to sit back, okay? Let me. Let me help him.”

She obeys as her vision starts to tunnel again. The last thing she sees is Barry bending over Cisco, breathing for him.

* * *

 

Laurel wakes up with the feeling that she was dreaming of something very important. The subject slips away the moment she opens her eyes to a dim light and a hunched-over shape leaning over her hospital bed. Her father’s spine is curved at an unnatural angle, his cheek flattened against the itchy hospital blanket and his face lined with creases that Laurel could swear weren’t there the last time she saw his face. The IV in her hand tugs as she reaches out to smooth away the wrinkles on his forehead. The second she touches his skin, he snaps into a sitting position.

“Laurel?”

“Dad.”

He takes her hand in both of his and breathes a deep sigh. “We were so worried, sweetie. Do you know where you are?”

She frowns. “The hospital. There was a bombing. . .”

“That’s right. The first couple of times you woke up, you were still pretty out of it.”

“I don’t remember—I don’t remember anything since the bomb. We were in the van, on the way to the hospital.” She sits up quickly, letting out a strangled sound as a splitting pain attacks her right side. She looks down and sees a tube coming out of her abdomen. “Cisco. Where’s Cisco?” The image of his face, empty and pale beneath a layer of soot, attacks her mind. He wasn’t breathing.

“Laurel, sweetie, you need to calm down. I’m going to call a nurse.”

“No. I don’t need a nurse. I need Cisco. Where is he? Is he okay?”

“Everyone you came in with is alive, okay? The Allen kid didn’t even let the doctors check him over. He wanted me to let him know when you were awake. You think you’re going to stay awake for a while?”

“I’m fine, Dad. I just—I need to see Cisco. Please.”

“Let’s start with Barry first, okay?” He squeezes her hand one more time before he stands up and walks out of the room.

Laurel leans her head back against the pillows and tries to control her breathing. Cisco is alive. He’s alive, and that’s all she can hold on to. She counts the drips of her IV, getting up to a hundred-and-twenty before her dad returns, Barry in tow. He’s wearing a navy blue hoodie, jeans, and the biggest dark under-eye circles she’s ever seen.

“I’m going to go get some coffee. You need anything?”

“Tea?”

“You got it. Allen?”

“I’m good, sir. Thanks.”

Laurel makes sure that her dad is several steps down the hallway before she turns to Barry. “ _Sir?_ ”

“Your dad is scary. Almost as scary as your sister and her wife,” he remarks, coming to sit at the edge of her bed. “How are you doing?”

“It really doesn’t matter. How’s Cisco?”

“Laurel, do you even know what happened to you?”

“You saved us from the bomber, I got hit with some splinters, and then Arsenal, Digg and Speedy took us down to the van. And Cisco—Barry, I need to see him.”

“You will. He’s upstairs, okay? The best doctor I know is taking care of him. But,” Barry begins, but he stops to scrub a hand through his hair. “It was bad. Both of you.”

“Hey,” Laurel says, taking his hand in hers as she watches guilt start blooming on his face. “None of this is your fault. We’d both be dead without you. You were great. I mean it. And if I see you blaming yourself again, then I’m going to strangle you with some of this conveniently-available tubing.”

A thin smile ghosts across his face. “Thanks. But Jesus, Laurel, you don’t know what it was like. . . You almost died from blood loss. You lost a kidney. You have a really bad concussion; you tore open your stitches the first two times you woke up because you were so worried about Cisco.”

“Why don’t I remember that?”

“Probably the concussion or trauma. You’re not fine, Laurel. You had internal injuries from the pressure changes, not to mention eight or ten shrapnel cuts that needed stitched and dozens more that didn’t.”

“How do you know this? We met properly like yesterday.”

Yellow lighting flickers off of the walls of the hospital room, and when Laurel blinks, Barry is sitting on the edge of her bed again. This time, he’s flipping through her chart.

“Actually, it was five days ago. You’re been out for a while. Your first name is  _Dinah_? I didn’t notice that before.”

“That is super illegal.”

He shrugs. “I’m a  _super_ hero. What other kind of illegal would my actions be?”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “Look, I’m serious. I want to know about Cisco.”

Barry puts her chart back and sighs. “Okay. But you have to promise that you’re not going to stand up and try to walk out of here, because you already tried that twice and almost died. Again.”

“It doesn’t count if I don’t remember it. But sure, I promise not to get up. But only if you promise that I get to see Cisco in the next ninety minutes”

“That’s oddly specific.”

“I’m trying to be gracious and give you a time window, Allen. Now spill.”

“Fine. Cisco wasn’t breathing when we brought him in. He has something called a blast-lung injury—basically, the pressure changes damaged his lungs to the point that they filled up with blood.”

Laurel swallows the sour taste that fills her mouth. “And?”

“That’s the biggest problem. His lungs are healing, but until they do, he’s on a ventilator to help him breathe.”

“Is he conscious?” There is a lump in Laurel’s throat that she can’t swallow down.

Barry shakes his head. “He was a lot like you. He can’t speak, but he kept trying to pull out the tube, so he’s sedated until he’s strong enough to breathe on his own.”

“What else?”

“He had some other internal injuries that required minor surgery, but other than a few cuts from the shrapnel, he’s good. No broken bones.”

“How’s your leg?”

Barry gives her a smile. “It was completely healed by the time you got out of your first surgery.”

“Good.” 

A knock sounds at the door, and Laurel looks up to see her dad and Sara at the door.

“And that’s my cue to go make your impossible ninety minute time-frame happen.” Barry nods to Laurel’s family and quickly exits the room.

Sara approaches the bed. “Assume the position,” she orders with a smile and a quirked eyebrow. Sighing, Laurel scoots over to give Sara enough room to climb into the bed with her. Sara’s hand reaches over Laurel’s shoulder and Laurel’s face is bombarded by a blob of grey, fuzzy plush in the shape of a battered shark.

“Sara, I am a grown vigilante. I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think that I need Shelly right now.”

“Shhhh. Don’t insult Shelly’s mystical healing powers. Snuggle.”

Laurel shoots her father an exasperated look, but he only pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of them.

“I think your mom has saved a few places in the family album. This will fit in nicely. I’m going to go send it to her and make a few calls. Your tea’s right here,” he says, gesturing to the bedside table.

“You’re horrible,” Laurel groans, but leans back into her sister’s warmth. Sara’s fingers play with her hair.

“Don’t do that again,” Sara whispers. “I’m not used to this—you being in the bed and me being the one who comes to visit.”

“Technically, we’re both in the bed.”

“Stop being a lawyer for two seconds and listen, Laurel. I was so afraid that you were gone. Nyssa is so freaked out seeing you like this that I sent her home.”

“Good. That stress isn’t good for her or the baby.”

Sara makes a humming noise and continues playing with Laurel’s hair. At some point, Sara drifts off to sleep. The soft, whistling snores—which Sara fervently denies the existence of but which are  _adorable_ —give Laurel something to count as she waits for Barry to come through on his promise.

* * *

 

Barry comes back before the deadline, but Laurel was not expecting him to bring an army. He is flanked by Oliver and Thea, both of whom look exhausted.

“Hey,” Laurel whispers. Sara groans and nestles her face into Laurel’s back.

“Hell no. Go away.”

“We’re not going to make you move, Sara. Go back to sleep.”

“’Kay. Great.”

Sara’s soft snores start up again, and Laurel doesn’t miss the fond, familiar smile that appears on Oliver’s face before he can will it away.

“Felicity’s arranging things upstairs. We’re going to have you moved upstairs into Cisco’s room in the private wing.”

“Private wing?”

“It’s a thing now. We kind of bought the hospital.”

The Laurel of four months ago would have thrown an incredibly well-worded and convincing fit about wealth privilege and thinking of others, but the Laurel of today is still hearing “into Cisco’s room” and feeling a burst of joy. She sucks up her indignant feelings and replaces them with gratitude. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem,” Thea says sweetly. “Mom was all too happy to donate when she found out that her two best lawyers—who are also head over heels for each other—got tragically injured in a freak bombing. I believe her exact words were, ‘What a shame. I really should call Jean and see about collecting my winnings.’”

A dry laugh works its way out of Laurel. Moira is nothing if not self-serving, even if her money is convenient. “Wow. Just wow.”

“Hey, I told you I would make it happen,” Barry says. “You didn’t give me any restrictions on  _how_ , and Oliver and Thea were all too happy to help.”

“You are all devious and I love you for it,” Laurel says, shocked to realize that she means it.

In a few minutes, nurses come into the room and begin pushing buttons and moving tubing around. Sara wakes up and offers to move, but the nurses just smile at her and tell her to stay off of Laurel’s tubing. They are wheeled down the hall, attracting more than a few strange stares, but make it into the elevator easily, going up a floor and passing down a series of quiet hallways until they reach Cisco’s room. They pause outside of the doorway.

A nurse who has identified herself as “Gloria, hun,” reaches out to take Laurel’s hand and looks her in the eyes. “He’s not going to look like his normal self, darlin’. The ventilator can be scary for a lot of people, but it’s just another piece of equipment helping him get better. Doctor Snow says that he might even get to come off of it as early as tomorrow. So you just prepare yourself, alright?”

Laurel nods and feels Sara curl in even closer to her. “I’m ready,” she tells Gloria, and they wheel her bed into Cisco’s room.

The first thing that strikes Laurel is the sterile, quiet feel of the place. The silence is punctuated by the rhythmic sound of the ventilator and the sound of Felicity shuffling something around and quietly talking to someone. When they turn the corner and Laurel sees him, she lets out a sigh of relief.

He doesn’t look  _good_ , but she thinks the nurses were exaggerating. He’s got a few tubes like she does, and the ventilator is a little bit odd, but he just looks like Cisco. A pale, unconscious Cisco with a few cuts and a wicked black eye, but Cisco all the same. A man is sitting by his bedside. He clutches a cup of coffee, and Laurel spies a comic book next to Cisco on the bed. She wants to say something, but Felicity swarms her.

“Laurel, that was terrifying, and nothing like that is ever going to happen to you again.”

“Okay. I missed you too, Lis.” Laurel sees teardrops start to fall down Felicity’s cheeks, and Oliver steps forward to wrap an arm around her.  _Good boy_.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m not leaving. But you probably should— I think it’s late, and now that you guys know I’m okay, you should get some sleep. I have Sara,” she says, pointing to the sister who is still clinging to her back like a baby koala.

“Is that even comfortable?”

“I’m on my good side, and I really don’t think comfortable is happening for me any time soon,” Laurel admits. “At least not until he wakes up. Go. Thank you. I’ll be fine. Make sure that Dad doesn’t try to pretend to go home only to loop back around in the parking garage.”

“He’d do that?” Barry’s question is innocent, but Laurel, Thea, Felicity, and Oliver all start laughing.

“Oh, Barry,” Felicity remarks. “You’re precious.”

Oliver sends her a look, but Felicity just shrugs. “In the you’re-my-best-friend sort of way.”

“Yep. Strictly platonic buddies,” Barry agrees hurriedly. “Oh, sorry, Dante. Dante, this is Laurel. The fashionable backpack she’s wearing is her sister, Sara. You’ve met Oliver, Thea, and Felicity, of course.”

Dante gives her a smile. “It’s nice to meet you. You must be ‘the one’.” Dante holds his hands up in a Shakespearian gesture and says the last words with reverence. “Sorry. That’s just how he referred to you on the phone.”

Laurel can feel herself blushing, but she giggles as she imagines Cisco talking about her on the phone to his brother. She turns to her friends again. “Scram. I mean it. I want to see you rested and perky tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t think that Oliver  _does_  perky,” Barry remarks.

“You’d be surprised. That was not a reference to Oliver’s package, although it’s very nice and ample and—”

“—Felicity, I think this is your cue,” Laurel interrupts, trying desperately to control her laughter.

“Right. Cool. Good talk. Bye.” Felicity yanks Oliver out of the room, her heels clicking against the floor loudly.

Barry squeezes Laurel’s hand and makes her promise to call him if she needs anything. Thea awkwardly gives Laurel the gentlest hug she has ever received before sliding a black credit card onto the bedside table and ordering Laurel to use it for anything she wants if she feels like doing online shopping.

Finally, the room only has four occupants, not including Shelly the stuffed shark.

“I’m really sorry for pretty much barging in here, but I couldn’t stay down there while he’s up here,” Laurel tells Dante. She realizes that her people have just swept in, and it’s probably not the easiest thing for Dante to have to deal with when he’s already worrying about his brother.

Dante just gives her a tentative smile. “Hey, it’s cool. Besides, I’m pretty sure Cisco would beat my ass if he found out I tried to keep you away. I’ve never heard him talk like that about anyone.”

“I’ve never felt like this about anyone,” she tells him honestly. “I’m in love with Cisco.”

“I guessed as much. I’m not sure whether it was the rumors about some girl tearing her stitches out to see my brother or said girl appearing with an entourage of well-meaning superheroes in his room, but somehow I get the idea that this isn’t going to be some fling for you two.”

Laurel feels tears coming to her eyes. “Thank you. Wait—superheroes?”

He gives her a patient smile. “I’ve always been good with faces, and masks don’t do as much as you think they do. I’m also the only one in my family who knows what Cisco does when he’s not lawyering. Well, except for Abuela, and Abuela knows all. Abuela, Mom and Dad, Carmen and Rosita were here for the first few days, but there’s only so much time that you can get off work, and they had to add days in for traveling to and from Detroit.”

“I see. So, you’re the only sibling who lives close?”

Dante shrugs. “Armando is a few hours away, but it’s a struggle trying to get a hold of him now that he lives out in the country. He’s ‘finding himself’ or something like that, but once he finds out that Paco’s hurt, you bet he’ll be here.”

“I’m glad that he had someone to be with him. I knew Barry would be here, but it’s nice that he has family.”

“I’m just glad he has you.” Dante studies her for a moment. “He told me about you, you know?”

“He said he’d been dropping hints to his family within the last few weeks.”

Dante shakes his head. “He has been. I was talking about before, when he had that date with you. I wish that we hadn’t gotten kidnapped that night—you could have been happy together a whole lot sooner.”

Laurel can almost hear her brain glitch. “Wait, you mean the date that he asked me on before all of this? He didn’t even know that I was the Black Canary until today.” The pieces start to fly together in her head. “You were the person he loved who got kidnapped.”

Dante frowns as he nods.. “I’ve only seen him talk about a woman like that when he was talking about Laurel Lance and when he was talking about the Black Canary. I did some googling, and again, the masks aren’t that great of a disguise. I thought he would have told you about the kidnapping during your time together.”

“I knew that what he did was because someone he cared about had gotten kidnapped, but I didn’t realize it was his brother.” She doesn’t want to imagine what she would do if something ever happened to Sara because of her.

“Oh.”

“Don’t stop there. What happened? If it’s not too much,” she says, realizing that this is not raelly her business as the words come out of her mouth.

Dante waves a hand. “Well, my foot’s already in my mouth, so I might as well keep going. He’ll kill me, anyway,” he says with a fond smile at Cisco. “He was over at my place getting ready—my tie collection is kind of legendary,” he says with a laugh. “And Captain Cold, Heatwave, and Golden Glider decided that they wanted him to build them new weapons. They’d stolen their others from S.T.A.R. Labs, and they knew Cisco’s secret identity because of their dealings with the Flash before.  It’s a long story. They knew he was a tinkerer in his spare time, too, and so they tried to force him to build them weapons.”

Laurel’s stomach turns as she imagines anyone forcing Cisco to do something he doesn’t want to do.

“He wasn’t going to do it, but Captain Cold froze my hands. Piano is my passion, and Cisco. . . Well, he wasn’t going to let anything happen to me, so he did as they asked. And after, when Barry had saved us and we were back at my house, he told me that he couldn’t risk something like that happening to you. He said something like, ‘I can’t bring her into this world.’ I told him he was an idiot, just for the record.”

“He was telling the truth. The Incident wasn’t just him being an asshole.”

“’The Incident’?”

“It was the first time I’d ever been stood up.”  _The only time_ , Laurel adds silently. “It was awful.”

“Ouch. Well, I hope you’ll forgive him. He was trying to protect you in his own weird way.”

Laurel gives him a grateful smile. “I don’t want to interrupt you. Go on doing what you were doing—I just need to be in here with him.”

Dante nods at her. “Are you sure? Because I was kind of reading him a comic book and doing the voices.”

Laurel holds up Shelly. “My sister is currently administering the mystical healing powers of a snuggle and Shelly the shark. There is no judgment here.”

Dante shrugs. “Remember, you asked for it.” He takes the comic book off of Cisco’s bed, props his feet up beside his brother’s hand, and starts reading. “’Holy hole in a donut, Batman!’”

Eventually, Laurel finds herself falling asleep, the dulcet tones of Dante’s ersatz bedtime story echoing in her ears.

* * *

 

Laurel feels as though her life since the bombing has been a cycle of falling asleep only to wake up moments later. Nurses come in to prod her, to prod Cisco, to do their jobs and (unfortunately) to wake Laurel up nearly on the hour, every hour for vitals checks. By six a.m, she is fully awake and has convinced a nurse to help her sit up. Sara is still asleep, her head on Laurel’s lap and her arm around Shelly. Dante is home showering and changing clothes, and Laurel is as alone with Cisco as she has been since the moment before their date was crashed by a psychopath.

“Cisco, please get better. I know you said that I’d never break, but...” She swallows hard. “I don’t know how much longer I can see you like this.”

The only response to her words is the sound of the ventilator rhythmically pushing air into his lungs. He looks young and still on the bed, and Laurel is struck by how infrequently she has seen him not smiling. He looks empty. She is used to seeing mischief and joy in every line and curve of his face.

“Don’t make me resort to extreme measures, Ramon. I’m not above asking Dante for baby pictures. I mean, what’s a bored girl to do?”

“I have a few of those that I got from his mom if you’d like to see them.”

The quiet voice in the doorway makes Laurel jump, and the face that accompanies it does nothing to set her at ease. The woman is wearing a blue sweater, a pencil skirt and a lab coat. Her hair is a silvery white and falls in soft curls past her shoulders. Her eyes are a glacial blue, and her skin is so pale it’s almost translucent. Laurel remembers Cisco saying that he was friends with Killer Frost and that it was “messy,” but she didn’t expect to see her in Cisco’s hospital room.

“I’m Caitlin Snow,” she says plainly, and Laurel can feel her own eyebrows shoot up into her hairline. So much for Killer Frost’s secret identity.

“Laurel Lance,” she says. “The Black Canary,” she adds after a moment of deliberation. Laurel has always been a show-me-yours-I’ll-show-you-mine type, and if Cisco trusts her, it’s enough for Laurel.

Killer— _Caitlin_ , Laurel corrects herself—smiles softly. “Cisco’s girlfriend,” she says. “He is so excited about you, although I have to admit, it’s a little strange that his nemesis from the office and his ally from his second job are the same person.”

“We thought so, too,” Laurel remarks as Caitlin enters the room. The temperature seems to drop a few degrees, and Laurel pulls her blanket up around her shoulders.

“Sorry. I’m working on controlling that.” She holds up her hands, which are encased in sleek, navy blue gloves. “Cisco made these for me, so I can at least touch people now without freezing them. Although, you know what they say about doctors and cold hands.”

Laurel cracks a smile. “I can see why he likes you.”

“Same,” Caitlin says, approaching Cisco’s bed. She looks at his monitors, takes his pulse, listens to his heart and his lungs with her stethoscope, and finally pulls the stool Dante was on to the other side of the bed so she can sit between Laurel and Cisco. “Do you mind if I look at your chart? I don’t do well just . . . Sitting.”

Laurel shrugs. “Have at it. It’s nothing the Flash hasn’t seen,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Caitlin’s smile is tinged with sadness. “Barry has never been that good about rules.” She snatches Laurel’s chart from the end of her bed before she returns to her stool. Caitlin whistles lowly. “Wow. I’m really surprised that you’re not in a morphine haze right now. Hell, I’d have you on hydromorphone with everything your body has been through.”

Laurel shrugs. “My pain tolerance is pretty good— recovering addict perks. I don’t mind—I’d rather be here and awake when you can take the ventilator out and wake him up.”

“Positive re-framing. I like it,” Caitlin says, scribbling a note on the chart.

“What’s that?”

“I’m ordering your antibiotics to be switched to something stronger. Your fever is higher than it should be.”

“How do you know that?”

Caitlin smiles patiently.

“Oh. Right.”

“I can knock it down a degree or two if you’d like.”

Laurel  _does_  feel warm. “Sure.”

Caitlin takes one of her gloves off slowly and extends her hand in Laurel’s direction. She closes her eyes, and Laurel feels herself cool down a bit. The haze in her head clears slightly. Caitlin puts her glove back on, and Laurel swears that Caitlin’s hair and skin look a couple of shades darker.

“Better?”

“Better. Thanks.”

Caitlin shrugs. “Positive re-framing. You’re at a nice ninety-eight-point-nine right now. I’m jealous.”

“That’s amazing.”

“I was a doctor before all of this, and it’s not something I’m willing to give up because of a stupid accident.”

“I wouldn’t, either. I have a feeling that my dad and the Arrow are trying to get me to hang it up after this.”

“As a doctor, I have to say that they’re probably right. You should spend quality bonding time with your remaining kidney.”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “Come on.”

Caitlin shrugs. “I didn’t say Doctor Snow is right. Killer Frost thinks that Cisco can probably fortify your suit to increase protection of that area. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem.” She reaches into the pocket of her lab coat and pulls out a scrap of paper and a pen. She scribbles something down and hands it to Laurel. “Here’s my number if you have any questions or need to talk about health concerns. Or maybe we could do coffee sometime after you and Cisco get out of here.”

“I’d like that.” Laurel and Caitlin lapse into silence, watching the pink light of the sunrise bathe the room in its shimmering tones. Laurel watches Cisco and wills him to wake up, just as she has done in all of her waking moments since arriving in the room. When he opens his eyes, she jumps. She’s been hoping for this, but not expecting it.

Cisco starts making choking noises, and Laurel sits up straighter. She can hear his heart monitor racing as Caitlin springs into action. “What’s happening?”

“It’s good news. He’s breathing on his own, which means that he doesn’t need the vent anymore.” Caitlin grabs Cisco’s shoulders, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “Cisco, it’s Cait. You’re okay. You need to relax. I know that it sucks, but just relax. I’m going to get this out.”

Cisco obeys her orders, although the horrible noises don’t stop and Laurel can hear her own heart monitor picking up. He sounds miserable. She can hardly believe that Sara is still asleep in her lap, but then again, Sara tends to stay up for long periods of time and then crash.

Caitlin peels the tape off of Cisco’s face and orders him to exhale as she pulls the tube out. He tries to speak, but only a croak comes out. His eyelids are heavy, and the circles under his eyes are purple grooves.

“Water first,” Caitlin orders, handing him a cup with a bendy straw. He glares at her, and Laurel suppresses a laugh at how much he looks like a five-year-old in that moment. He drains the cup quickly and clears his throat.

“Laurel? How is she?” He sounds hoarse and horrible and Laurel wishes more than anything that she could go comfort him.

“See for yourself,” Caitlin tells him warmly, jerking her head towards Laurel, who has scooted so far to the edge of her bed that she is almost falling off. “I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes, but I’m coming back to do assessments on each of you.”

“Thanks, Cait,” he says distractedly as she leaves the room. His eyes are locked with Laurel’s, and she can see them welling up with tears even as a grin breaks across his face.

“ _Ay dios mio._ I was so worried about you. They never told me. . .I could have lost you, and I didn’t realize how much I loved you until I thought I’d never get to say it again.” He wipes at a tear that escapes.

“You can’t do this to me,” Laurel says as she gives him a watery smile. “For a while I thought that you hadn’t made it. I love you too much to let you go.” She sniffles, blowing her nose into a tissue from the bedside table. “And if you couldn’t tell, I’m a sympathetic crier.”

“Sorry.”

“God, I feel like I can breathe again.”

“Me, too,” he says slyly.

“Really, Cisco? Really?”

“It’s either that or break into sobs as I try to explain the shitty nature of being unable to ask about you. And when I got pissed off that I couldn’t find out anything about you, they just sedated me. Rude,” he says with a scowl.

His voice sounds so raspy that part of Laurel wants to tell him to rest, but the selfish part of her can’t get enough of his voice. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember this, but apparently, I woke up a couple of times and went on a Cisco scavenger hunt. I tore out my stitches twice, or at least that’s what they told me.”

“Jesus, Laurel. Wait, stitches? Are you okay? It looked really bad. . .”

“It’s fine—”

“Laurel, you both are kind of the definition of ‘not fine.’” Caitlin re-enters the room holding a tray of supplies.

“Is that the medical terminology?” Laurel snarks.

“Yes,” Caitlin sniffs, placing her tray at the foot of Laurel’s bed.

“Since when are you two frenemies?”

“Since twenty minutes ago,” Laurel says mildly, and she and Caitlin share a smile.

“Back to what you said about ‘not fine.’ How is Laurel ‘not fine’?”

Caitlin details Laurel’s injuries for Cisco, using more medical jargon than Laurel can keep up with. Cisco, however, seems to be keeping up just fine.

“You lost a  _kidney_?”

“I don’t even miss it,” she promises him.

“Wow. Cold. And here I was thinking about sending it a Christmas card.”

Laurel laughs so hard it shakes her body. “Ow! Stop it.”

Sara stirs. “I will not,” she grumbles, hugging Shelly tighter.

The other three stifle their laughter as Sara goes back to sleep.

“One of my sisters,” Laurel says by way of explanation.

“I had no idea she was so sassy,” Cisco remarks.

“The sassiest,” Laurel replies, fondly stroking Sara’s hair.

“Laurel wasn’t the only one who became ‘not fine’ after the explosion,” Caitlin remarks, launching into an explanation of just how lucky Cisco was that he got to the hospital so quickly, and that Barry was there to do rescue breathing.

Cisco cracks up when he hears that tidbit of news. “Still a better love story than  _Twilight_ ,” he remarks.

“You and Barry are really special,” Caitlin remarks. She turns to Laurel with an apologetic look on her face. “I’m afraid that we need to wake your sister up. Your dressing needs changed, and since I’m here, I might as well do that. Besides, I’m worried about infection.” Caitlin slips some latex gloves on over her navy blue gloves.

“Okay, but be warned that I’m about to poke a bear with a sharp stick,” Laurel tells them seriously.

“I think I can handle it,” Caitlin remarks. “I wake up grumpy sometimes, too.”

“Usually I just let her sleep,” Laurel says, but begins the process of pulling Sara out of sleep. She gently shakes Sara’s shoulder. “Sar-Bear, it’s time to get up.”

“No. I just got you back and you’re warm.”

“Sara, I’m going to get gangrene and it’ll be all your fault.”

“I’ve had gangrene; it builds character.”

Laurel exchanges amused looks with Cisco and Caitlin.

“I will claim that Shelly is a biohazard and have her incinerated.”

Sara sits up, hair in her eyes, and clutches the shark to her chest. “You wouldn’t dare,” she says darkly.

“I wouldn’t. But now that you’re up, Doctor Snow is going to change my bandages, so you need to at least scoot down.”

Sara groans but swings her legs over the side of the bed. She nearly falls over when she puts her weight on her legs. “Dammit. Why did you let me sleep with these things on?”

“Sorry,” Laurel says with a wince as Sara hobbles over to a chair along the wall and begins the process of taking her prosthetics off. “I was distracted.”

“I know. It looks like things are going well, though,” Sara says, gesturing to Cisco. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Hey, Sara.”

“Hey, Cisco. Can I just say that I’m really surprised and impressed that you’ve managed to move up the ranks from ‘That Bastard’ to boyfriend status so quickly? That takes talent.”

“Um, thanks?”

Sara smiles at Cisco. “You’re welcome.”

Laurel hisses as Caitlin peels back the dressing covering her scar. Now that she’s not obsessively waiting for Cisco to wake up, Laurel realizes that losing a kidney really, really sucks.

“Yep. That’s infected,” Caitlin says grimly as she prods the area. “It looks like Cisco might be getting out of here before you are.”

“Not fair,” Laurel grits. As Caitlin presses a particularly sensitive area, the front half of a scream splits its way out of Laurel’s mouth. She snaps her teeth together and swallows the rest of it. She can feel sweat starting to form on her brow.

“Laurel, your blood pressure is too high. Your heart-rate isn’t great, either. I’m giving you something for the pain.”

Laurel doesn’t have enough time to protest before Caitlin is jabbing a syringe into her central line and depressing the plunger.

“I hate you.” She closes her eyes and sees the person she was after Tommy died. She never wants Cisco to see that side of her, the side that used to curl up on the  couch with a bottle of wine, a box of tissues and a handful of pills. 

“Join the club,” Caitlin says with false brightness. “Cisco can tell you when the meetings are.” She crosses the room to dump the used needle in the sharps disposal bin.

“Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s fun. We eat frosties and bitch about how Caitlin Snow has ruined our lives.”

“And yet you’re all still alive because of me. Huh.” Caitlin’s tart attitude is refreshing, and it is interesting to see Cisco with a friend. She’s seen Vibe and the Flash together, but watching Cisco joking and laughing with someone while wearing a hospital gown and three layers of blankets touches a different part of Laurel’s heart.

“I’m going to continue flushing out your wound, Laurel. Let me know if I need to give you some more pain relief.

“Not happening,” Laurel grumbles.

A plush missile lands near Laurel’s head. Rolling her eyes, Laurel tucks the shark under her arm before turning to look at Sara, who has deposited her legs in a spare chair and is tapping out a text message.

“How have you kept Dad away?”

“It’s not visiting hours yet. He doesn’t need to know that Ollie bought the hospital.”

“Who’s Ollie? He did  _what_?”

Laurel stares at her sister and quirks an eyebrow in her signature overture to their silent conversations.  _What part about letting secret identities slip with a metahuman of dubious moral character in the room sounds like a good idea?_

Sara rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.  _Calm down, crazy. Slip of the tongue_ , she seems to say.

“Yeah, right,” Laurel replies aloud, and Sara sticks her tongue out.

“What just happened? And will someone answer my question?”

“Ollie is the ex-boyfriend you met in the elevator that one time, remember?” Laurel stares meaningfully at Cisco before flashing her eyes to Caitlin and back to him.

Recognition flashes across Cisco’s face and he nods at her. “But Barry knows him. . . Are you telling me that Barry— _Barry_ —is secretly friends with your ex and didn’t tell me?”

“Aww, are you jealous?” Sara gives Cisco a teasing smile.

“What? No.”

“You  _are_. When are you going to realize that nobody is ever going to depose you as Barry’s best friend?” Caitlin shakes her head as she finishes cleaning Laurel’s wound. She applies some sort of ointment before she covers the wound with a fresh bandage and starts telling Laurel to follow a penlight with her eyes.

“When he stops keeping secrets,” Cisco grumbles.

“You live half of your life in disguise. It sounds like it’s part of the job.” Sara barely looks up as she types out a text. “And I should warn you: incoming in about five minutes.”

“Or less,” Dante chimes from the doorway. “Thanks for the call, Doctor Snow.” He crosses the room in long strides, surrounding Cisco in what looks like an uncomfortably tight embrace. He speaks so lowly that Laurel can only make out one word:  _perdido_. Her throat becomes uncomfortably tight when she sees the tears in Dante’s eyes. He plants a kiss on Cisco’s head, ruffles his hair, and finally pulls back to greet the rest of the room.

“Thanks for the call, Doctor Snow.”

“Caitlin, please.”

“Caitlin it is. Laurel,” he nods. “And this must be the deep sleeper from last night. I had no idea all of the Lance sisters were so beautiful. Three out of three is impressive.”

Sara smiles sweetly. “My wife thinks so. I’m Sara.”

“Ouch, Dante. I’m sure Caitlin has some cream for that burn,” Cisco teases with a devious smile.

“Just because you’re injured doesn’t mean you get to be a jerk, Paco.”

“I’m pretty sure it does. I’ve been under a lot of stress.”

Caitlin rolls her eyes. “Oh, yes. If I remember correctly from the medical textbooks, symptoms of surviving a bombing include sauciness, increased appetite, loss of inhibitions,  and entitlement.”

“See your doctor if your ego’s erection lasts longer than four hours,” Sara chimes in, and everyone laughs.

“Wow. It seems like I’ve been missing out.”

Laurel looks up to see Barry leaning against the doorway.

“Barry! Hey!” Cisco’s face lights up.

 _There should be something illegal about the way those cheekbones move when he smiles_ , Laurel thinks to herself.

“Hey, man. It’s good to see you looking like you again.” Barry’s eyes soften.

Laurel feels like an intruder in this tender moment; regardless, she can’t pry her eyes away.

“Come on. Ventilators are the new sexy.”

“I’m sure. I didn’t know you were going for Vader chic these days.” Barry makes a surprisingly convincing Darth Vader noise. 

He reaches Cisco’s bed, and they pull each other into a complicated hug, high five and handshake combination that Laurel is sure they took great pleasure in choreographing.

“I hear I have you to thank for me being here at all. I can’t believe I slept through our first kiss, but thanks for saving my life.”

Barry and Cisco both turn red.

“Bros don’t let bros stop breathing,” Barry replies after a small delay.

“Damn straight.”

Just like that, Cisco and Barry launch into a scientific discussion that Laurel can’t follow, and neither of the boys seem to notice that there are other people in the room.

Dante approaches Laurel’s bed. “Is it just me, or do you feel completely invisible right now?”

She shrugs. “I think I’ll get used to it. I’d be more upset if they weren’t so adorable.”

“They really are precious,” Sara chimes in.

“Add puppies and you could make a calender,” Caitlin quips.

“Are you talking about us?” Barry finally seems to see the room’s other occupants.

“Not everything is about you, Barry,” Caitlin says breezily, and the women and Dante dissolve into laughter.

As she leans back against her pillows, Laurel realizes that laughing with these people feels an awful lot like healing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it. I couldn't refrain from a little bit of Barry/Cisco bromance. I just love those two! We have one more chapter and an epilogue to go, and I hope you'll stick around to see where these two lovebirds end up. The teaser should be up on tumblr on Friday or so.


	7. Begin Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, healing requires a little space. Other times, it requires cuddling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at the last chapter. I have so enjoyed this journey with you. I'm not saying that I know you or anything, but if I had to go on a mythical quest to destroy a seriously evil ring, I would totally invite you all to join in on the adventure. Many, many thanks to all of you. I'll get even sappier in my notes for the epilogue, but I just wanted to say that I appreciate each and every reader and hope that this last chapter is a good read.

It isn’t the fact that Cisco gets discharged earlier than she does that irritates Laurel. It isn’t even the fact that Moira is constantly texting her asking for an update about her return to work.  No, the thing that gives Laurel a metaphorical skin rash is the fact that Cisco  _won_ _’t go home_.

She loves him. The thought of losing him was horrible, and the moments they spend together are wonderful. But it has been three days since Cisco has been discharged, and he has relied on his friends to deliver clean clothes and food to him while he stays rooted to Laurel’s side. Like a lichen. Or mold. He sleeps at the hospital on his old bed, although “sleep” is perhaps the wrong term. He pretends to close his eyes, but Laurel can feel the worry rolling off of him in waves. He showers at the hospital. He eats at the hospital. To Laurel, he has almost become part of the scenery in her hospital room. She only has to twitch, however, and he springs into action.

She stretches and yawns as she plots how to soothe this irritation without hurting his feelings.

He snaps to attention like a marionette whose strings have been tightened.  “Do you need—”

“—yes. Tea would be really, really great right now, Cisco.”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time.” As he stands up to leave, she notices that his  _Sherlock_  t-shirt is looser on him than the last time she saw him wear it at work. “Have you eaten today?”

He blinks. “Yes. I had a protein bar.”

_Of course his days are blurring together. That_ _’s what happens when you never sleep._

“No,” she corrects gently. “That was yesterday. You’ve been in here since I woke up. Go get food. And no, don’t eat at the cafeteria. You’ll poison yourself. I want you to go and eat something somewhat healthy. I want you to go back to your place, shower, and maybe take a nap. I promise that if I somehow contract flesh-eating bacteria in the two hours you are gone, I will send one of the minions to collect you.”

“Minions?”

“You and Sara have a rotation going. I didn’t get through law school by batting my eyelashes, Cisco. I’m smart enough to know that Iris West, who I had never met before this accident, didn’t decide to stop in yesterday while you were showering by coincidence.”

Cisco looks at Laurel and wipes his hands down the front of his jeans. He presses his lips together and furrows his brow.

Laurel can practically hear the gears grinding in his head. “Hey,” she says. “It’s fine. “I just want you to take care of yourself. It won’t do either of us any good if you have to be checked in again.”

He lets out a long, slow breath. “You’ll call me if you need anything?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure that you’ll be fine here?”

“Yes.”

“But what about your tea?”

“I believe I can help with that,” says Nyssa from the doorway, raising a Styrofoam cup. She combs her eyes over Cisco. “You look like a diseased squirrel. Go. Rest. I will look after my sister.”

Cisco nods. He drops a warm kiss on the top of Laurel’s head. “I’ll smuggle in some good stuff on my way back in,” he promises.

She smiles up at him. “You better. Now get out of here, Squirrely.”

He rolls his eyes before nodding politely to Nyssa and walking out of the room. His gait is slow and hitched; he still has healing of his own to do. When he’s almost through the doorway, he turns around.

“Are you sure—”

“Francisco, you will leave now.” Nyssa’s voice is calm and even as she locks eyes with Cisco. The  _or I will beat you with your own spine_  may be silent, but Laurel hears it and knows that Cisco does, too.

“I will leave now,” he drones like the victim of a Jedi mind trick.  As she hears his footsteps fade into the noise of the rest of the hospital, Laurel lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“Thank you. Thank you. If you ever need to have another baby and don’t want to carry it, I will do it. No questions asked.” Laurel flops gently back against her pillows, taking the cup of tea Nyssa offers her.

Nyssa sits on the edge of the bed, a smile playing across the corners of her mouth. “I’m sure Sara will be pleased that you are so thoughtful. I take it you are finding Cisco’s constant presence smothering?”

Laurel frowns. “I’m not sure if ‘smothering’ is the right word. It’s more that we had one date— _three-quarters_ of a date—as our true selves. We barely discussed The Incident, and now. . . Well, I’d just like to be able to pee without him asking me what color it was,” she grumbles.

Nyssa laughs. “Solitude is a healing balm. Once you are well enough to return home and spend some time alone, I am sure that you will soon be eager to return to the arms of your beloved.”

Laurel sighs. “I hope so. I don’t  _want_ to be irritated. I just am.”

“There is nothing wrong with needing room to collect your thoughts. I spend an hour meditating in solitude every morning. Sara is my sun and stars, but being in a relationship is not about losing who you are as a person. It is about the harmony of two separate, complete entities.”

“You and Sara are getting your pet names from  _Game of Thrones_  now?”

“It is entertaining. Would you prefer that we referred to each other as pastries?”

“It’s an inside joke,” Laurel defends. “But you’re probably right as always. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to talk to him.”

“Talk to who?” Diggle walks into the room holding a white paper bag.

“To  _whom_ ,” Nyssa corrects.

Diggle’s eyebrow twitches. “I’ll save the diatribe on prescriptive versus descriptive language and the continually evolving state of spoken language for another time, Nyssa.”

Laurel almost laughs at Nyssa’s expression.  Diggle is a man of few words, but Laurel has a theory that it is because his mind is too vast and powerful a place for mere mortals to comprehend its wisdom.

“John, if you were getting on Lyla’s nerves, how would she tell you?”

“Usually?” He pulls a bagel and a small container of cream cheese out of the bag and hands it to Laurel along with a plastic knife.

 She smiles at him and gratefully takes the sustenance. Anything not hospital-related tastes like heaven.

“Usually,” he says, “she pulls out her Glock and uses her other hand to point to the door.”

Laurel grins. “I wonder. . .”

“No. I know what you’re thinking, and no. For God’s sake, if you two would just talk to each other instead of outsourcing your problems, things would be a lot easier.”

“Wait—is Cisco  _outsourcing_  his problems? What problems does Cisco have?”

“Eat your bagel.”

Laurel would retaliate, but she is too busy sinking her teeth into crispy, creamy, chewy goodness that the best she can do is a half-hearted glare.

“For the nine hundredth time, your problems are not automatically my problems unless there is blood involved.”

Laurel points to the drain in her side, the tube of which is filled with light pink fluid. “There’s blood in that. I think.”

“You’re really milking this for all it’s worth.”

“I miss my kidney.”

“You do not. You miss your freedom.”

Laurel swallows her bite of bagel; it tastes like the truth that Diggle just introduced into the room.

“On that note, Nyssa and I are leaving. You look like you could use some alone time.”

“God, yes. I love you, but if you could keep anyone from coming in here for a solid hour, I would be eternally grateful.”

“Done.”

“You’re the best, John.”

“So I’m told.”

* * *

 

 Five minutes into Cisco’s thrilling tale of his adventures outside of the hospital, Laurel cannot take it any longer. He has taken a shower and smells like himself again—not like the cheap hospital soap he’s been using for the last few days. His hair, still wet, is wound into a neat bun at the nape of his neck, and his cheeks look slightly less pale and sunken. His hand feels warmer in hers, although Laurel knows its probably her imagination. She is in the middle of admiring his long eyelashes when she realizes that it’s now or never; she  _has_  to say something, or he’ll smile first and she’ll be too intoxicated to tell him what’s on her mind.

“Listen,” she begins.

“Oh, God.”

“What?”

“The only time a girl ever starts a conversation with that is when she’s breaking up with you or you really screwed up.”

Laurel pulls his hand closer to her body. “And the winner in the long-jump to conclusions is Cisco Ramon, ladies and gentlemen. No, it’s not that. I just need to tell you something.”

“Okay?” He looks like a six-year-old at the doctor’s office who expects to get a shot.

“I love you.”

A smile spreads across his face. He kisses her forehead, and his lips are warm and soft. “I love  _you._ ”

_I can do this. I can do this_. “And it’s because I love you that I think we need a little bit of time to be Laurel and Cisco instead of LaurelandCisco. Caitlin’s discharging me tomorrow, and I think that we should each go back to our apartments. I—it’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you. I just. . .”

“Is this about that night?” Cisco’s eyes are wide and hurt and vulnerable, and Laurel feels as if pieces of her ribcage are peeling off.

“The Incident?” Laurel takes a deep breath. “Maybe a little. I’m not saying that I don’t want to be with you. I love you. I just need a little bit of time to process the fact that you love me back.”

“That’s what you want?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” His voice is taut and guarded. In the movies, iron shields always slam down over the windows when there’s a threat. It’s as if his eyes have done the same thing. The shields are invisible, but so are the emotions and thoughts that Laurel is used to being able to read as they happen. He stands up. “You know you can still call me if you need anything. I’ll be here, but I think I should go now.”

“Okay,” she says, willing her voice not to be as small as she feels.

He wraps her in a hug. “We’ll figure this out.” Before he pulls away, he kisses the top of her head. “I’ll see you.”

Laurel nods. “You will. I love you.”

“Love you.”

As he walks away, Laurel realizes that it doesn’t matter if she’s the one who told him to go; it still feels like being left behind.

* * *

 

Before Vibe, Laurel never realized how much time she spent alone. Since returning home from the hospital, however, Laurel has nothing but time and nobody but herself to spend it with. For the first day and a half, it is glorious.

She is still incredibly sore and fatigued, and Caitlin has forbidden her from lifting anything heavier than a milk jug. There is only one solution: her couch, her laptop, and a backlog of shows that she’s missed due to the hectic nature of her life over the last few months. At first, it is easy to lose herself in the lives of her favorite characters. She eats homemade applesauce that Nyssa sent over and drinks a new type of tea that Iris insisted that she try. It is easy and relaxing, and due to the commercial-free pleasure that is marathonning her favorite shows, she has no time to reflect or to think or to figure anything out. Essentially, she wastes time.

It goes swimmingly until she is all caught up. There’s not a single, measly episode of  _Grey_ _’s Anatomy_  she hasn’t seen. There are no more intergalactic  _Doctor Who_ adventures to distract her. Hell, she’s even caught up on  _The Vampire Diaries_ , which is her darkest and guiltiest pleasure. At last, she turns off the TV. There’s nothing to watch unless she wants to watch cooking shows or  _Oprah_. Instead, her eyes flicker to the pair of phones on her coffee table. One has been going off nonstop—texts from concerned co-workers, friends and family are abundant—and the other has been still and silent since the bombing. Periodically, she keys in her pass-code and checks for new messages that she could have somehow missed.

_Don_ _’t be an idiot, Laurel. You asked for space_. She feels guilty for feeling lonely, and she feels guilty that she even needed to be alone in the first place.  _Which is ridiculous, because he treated you like shit and you don_ _’t just get over that. I don’t care how good he smells or how cute his face is._ Sometimes, Laurel realizes, it sucks to be a strong, independent woman. She doesn’t  _need_  Cisco, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want him. She just doesn’t want the horrible memories that sometimes pop out when he does something as innocent as reaching for her hand.

“I’m a mess,” she says aloud to herself. The empty air of her apartment seems to agree with her. Sighing, she reaches for her Canary phone and reads their text messages again. She has already typed  **I miss you**  before she realizes how true it is. She imagines Vibe on the other end, smiling as he sees her message. For a moment, she indulges in the daydream that they’d never found out about each other. She imagines them saving people together, stealing kisses in between rescues. She sees herself in a white dress and black mask, him in a tux and those ridiculous shades. The idea is so ridiculous that she almost wants to laugh. She doesn’t realize that she’s crying until she feels the wetness on cheeks. She swipes them away, embarrassed despite the fact that there’s only her furniture to see her fall apart.

“It might be better, but it wouldn’t be real.” She swallows the lump in her throat and remembers the way that Cisco’s fingers had brushed across hers in the copy room. There were looks, she knows. Little, forlorn looks that he’d tried to hide from her and that she’d tried to hide from herself. She closes her eyes and can almost smell him, feel his excited arms wrapping around her that day in the courtroom. His arms had been warm, joyful,  _safe_. Before Laurel had remembered herself, she’d leaned into his embrace, their mutual joy creating a giddy feedback loop.

When she opens her eyes, Laurel presses send without another thought. She gets off the couch and retrieves a trash bag from the kitchen. Slowly, she begins stuffing the evidence of her television binge out of sight. The delivery containers disappear one by one. She runs a hand through her tangled hair. The phone hasn’t beeped.  _He_ _’s probably busy giving you space_ , she thinks snidely to herself.

In an ideal world, Cisco would show up right now. It would be raining, the droplets clinging to strands of his hair and falling onto his shoulders. He would have some sort of grand gesture for her, and they’d share one of those kisses that can curl your toes through the TV screen. She’d lead him to the bedroom, and they’d right the wrong in a tender and sweet love-making session.

This is reality, so she keeps stuffing trash into the bag, stopping every few minutes because her stitches pull. She moves to the kitchen table, organizing stacks of paper and throwing coffee cups into the trash. Her phone rings, and she is halfway into a conversation with a telemarketer before the disappointment hits her in full. She politely tells Fatima that she isn’t interested and sinks into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Finally, she picks up the phone and dials Felicity.

“Hey! How’s the Hulu? Or have you moved on to Netflix?”

Laurel shakes her head. For a sister not of her blood, Felicity knows her too well. “I’m through. I can’t take it anymore. Is everyone patrolling tonight?”

“Yes. But not you. Because you’re horribly injured and everything.”

“Not so much. Caitlin says it’ll be a month or so before I can get out in the field, but I’m going stir crazy. Can I come keep you company while you work coms? I promise I’ll just sit on the couch and do nothing.”

“Sure. We’re working from the Perch tonight anyway. Roy misused the microwave in the Foundry and it still smells like decomposing rodent in there. Gross. Are you okay?”

“I will be.”

“Great. Then I’ll order some Hawaiian pizza and we’ll sit on our asses and tell people what to do.”

“Ah, our natural habitat,” Laurel muses.

Felicity laughs. “Don’t even try to put real pants on. Just come in your sweats. Be comfy.”

“Fine. I’ll see you soon.”

* * *

 

 “Does he see that heat signature on his left? He has to. What is that, the Hulk?”

Felicity laughs at Laurel, who is situated under a pile of blankets on the couch. “That would be Diggle. Oliver isn’t as unobservant as you think, Laurel.”

“ _Really_?” The blob on the screen looks significantly bigger—and warmer—than Oliver’s blob.

“You’ll get used to it. Heat signatures are weird. I remember the first time we worked with Firestorm. Now  _that_ was entertaining.”

“Oracle, I don’t see them,” Oliver’s voice crackles over the speakers.

“They’re not in the building yet. You have about forty-five seconds before they arrive. There are three vans, all caravanning from the northwest.” Felicity turns to another computer screen displaying traffic cameras.

“Got it.”

“What’s that?” Laurel points to something on the very edge of the cameras’ fields.

“It looks like the Flash is after these guys, too. At least you’ll have company,” she says to Oliver and Diggle.

“No, not that. That.” A familiar car cruises into the field of vision, blatantly following the vans albeit from a few cars behind. “I’m going to kill him.”

“That’s not  _him_ , is it?”

“In the ostentatiously Vibe-themed car? Of course not. Apparently, he has time to return to work way too soon but can’t even reply to a text message.”

“You  _did_  tell him you needed time—”

Felicity is cut off when the vans screech to a halt and the drug-traffickers descend upon the empty warehouse. They either haven’t noticed Cisco’s car, or they are cocky enough to think that it doesn’t matter. “Arrow, Digg, they’re on their way in. All through the front entrance; I don’t think they suspect anything.”

“Good. Thanks, Oracle.” Digg’s voice is calm and focused.

Laurel doesn’t take her eyes of the screen.

“Can you hack into their com frequencies?”

“In my sleep. Actually, I’m converting them to our frequency now. Digg, Arrow, I’m connecting you to Flash and Vibe’s coms. They’re on their way.”

“Vibe? Isn’t he supposed to be—”

“Healing?” Laurel activates the comm link Felicity gave her in case she wanted to chime in. “Yes.”

Oliver says nothing, but Digg whistles lowly just as the doors to the warehouse burst open with a thud.

Felicity types furiously at her keyboard. With a final clack of her fingers against the keys, the noises of Oliver and Diggle taking down the drug-traffickers are joined by the sounds of Cisco and Barry bickering.

“Stay in the car!”

“There are three vans full of bad guys. You’ll need me.”

“No, he won’t. Hi. Sorry to break up your little tiff, but the Arrow and Digg are already inside. Flash should be fine.”

“Oracle?

“Felicity?” Vibe and the Flash speak in unison.

“Dammit, Flash!”

“Sorry, sorry. How did you even…?”

“My sweet summer child,” Felicity begins with a pitying tone.

“Can we focus?” Oliver’s voice is almost a roar. There is no more talking. There are only thuds, clangs, gunshots, and the occasional bit of screaming.

  _Nothing to worry about_ , Laurel thinks to herself. She knows the screams she doesn’t want to hear, and none of them disturb the radio waves.

“You’ve got a couple of runners. They’re coming back out the front entrance,” Felicity warns.

Laurel watches the two red-orange figures on the thermal imaging screen.

“Got it,” Vibe says determinedly, and Felicity changes the angle so Vibe’s own heat signature is visible. He’s hotter than the others except for Barry, and both of them seem to run at the same temperature. He gets out the car, and a boom loud enough to make Felicity’s speakers pop is broadcasted over the radio.

“Clean up on aisle four,” he says weakly. His heat signature blob slumps slightly.

“Flash, get him here now,” Laurel orders, peeling off her pile of blankets and standing up gingerly. Her wound is still sore as hell, especially since she avoids taking her painkillers when she absolutely doesn’t have to.

“Got it,” he replies, and within seconds, he appears in a streak of light and deposits Vibe on the couch.

“We’ll just debrief downstairs,” Felicity says. “Digg, Arrow, come to the apartment when you get back. Signing off,” she says, pulling her earwig out and setting it down on the desk. She grabs her purse and clicks down the hallway. “Come along, Barry.”

He gives Cisco a wave that looks more like a last salute, but obeys Felicity’s orders. The door clicks shut behind him, and Laurel is alone with Vibe.

“Did you get my text?”

He nods.

“You didn’t text me back.”

He gives her a tiny smile. “I was a little busy.” He winces as he gets up from the couch, clasping her hand and leading her over to one of the computers. “I know that Felicity will kill me, but I can’t wait to show you this.”

He pulls off his shades, wincing as the adhesive behind his ears pulls his skin. He hands them to Laurel and starts typing.

She frowns as she puts them on, keeping her fingers over the sticky backs of the earpieces so they don’t stick to her hair. “Whoa.” The world is bathed in golden light, which she was expecting. What she wasn’t expecting was the multitude of tiny symbols overlaying her vision. She focuses on a magnifying glass, and suddenly she’s looking at the tiny pores on the end of Cisco’s nose. She looks at the magnifying glass again and her vision zooms out to normal range.

 He smirks and turns his eyes back to the computer screen. “Try the red dot.”

She focuses on the red dot, and her vision is taken over by thermal imaging, similar to what Felicity had up on the screens earlier. She pulls the glasses off. “How? They’re so light.”

“It’s just about finding the right materials. Speaking of that, come here.”

She takes a seat beside him on one of Felicity’s computer chairs and chances a look at the screen. She sees some 3-D blueprints for a pair of glasses similar to Cisco’s. He spins his chair around to face her, and she mimics the movement. He reaches out to take both of her hands in his.

“Laurel, I think you made the right choice. Being without you sucked, but what really sucked was that I had a lot of time to think about what an idiot I was about The Incident. Kudos to your for naming it; that makes it sound a lot more awesome and mysterious than That Time When I Was a Douche. But anyway, I had a lot of time to think about it.”

He inhales and squeezes her hands lightly. “What I did to you goes against everything that I believe. When I stood you up, I treated you like you didn’t matter. That’s the opposite of the truth. I took away your right to be informed about a dangerous situation and your right to make your own decision. I will never regret a moment I spend with you, and I will never regret sharing myself with you that night. What I do regret are the circumstances. I should never have had sex with you. I should never have stood you up in the first place, but if I was going to go that route, I should have made a clean break. I hurt you. I treated you like you weren’t enough of a person to make your own decisions. I became the type of person that I have always hated.”

“It was a pretty shitty thing to do,” Laurel agrees.

“And when you said you needed some time, it stung. But as I spent some time alone, I thought about the person I was before I did that to you and the person I’ve been trying to be since then. I thought about the person that you liked in the first place, and the person I am when I’m Vibe. That person was— _is_ —in love with you. He loves to learn about your likes and passions, your dislikes and the things that you can’t stand.” He looks down at their joined hands. “That guy is really sorry for what he did, and he’s had some time to come up with a few ideas.” He gestures to the screen.

“What am I looking at?”

“Part of my apology,” he replies. “When I got really, really lonely, I googled you.”

“You what?”

“I know. But I found this article that you wrote last year about body cams and technology’s role in police brutality. You said ‘A big part of the problem is internal, systematic racism. Another part of the problem is the snap decisions that cops are being required to make without proper information.’ I’m hoping that these could change that.”

He points to the lenses. “They’d be a lot like mine, with heat imaging and zoom capabilities. They’d also be equipped with low-grade imaging technology. Nothing with x-ray magnitude,” he says quickly. “That’s just violating. But I’m thinking that if we could equip these guys with an ability to see whether it’s a gun or a pack of cigarettes in someone’s pocket, we could save some lives. I’ve put in a call to my friend Ray at Palmer Tech, and he has some ideas, too. He thinks we could be in beta testing by early next year.”

“Wow. That’s amazing,” Laurel says genuinely. The thought of all of the lives that could be saved with this technology is boggling.

“I’ve watched you work. I know that justice is kind of your calling card, and I know that this is something you’re really passionate about. I wanted to show you that I see you as a person. I see your hopes and dreams. I see the sort of things that make you get up on a soapbox, and I wanted to tell you that I will stand on that soapbox with you and scream at people until they listen. You  _matter_ , and I wanted to show you that I know that. As much as I wish this whole experience hadn’t happened, I  _have_ learned from it. I’m a better man because of you.”

There are so many words in Laurel’s head that she can’t make them come out of her mouth. A moment passes.

“Laurel?” His voice is small, insecurity rolling off of him.

“Thank you. Apology accepted. But you need to know that I’m not the most secure person. You know how often I’ve been left and pushed aside. I need to know that you’re willing to stick around and remind me of all of this more than once.”

“Laurel,” he says, “I’d reinvent particle physics for you every Saturday if you asked.”

She leans in, letting her mouth say  _I trust you_ in a new way.

* * *

 

That night, they fall asleep on the couch together, both too sore to think about pesky things like changing clothes or finding bedrooms. Instead, they are tangled in each other’s arms until the next morning, when Felicity walks into the Perch with a raised eyebrow and a bundle of clothes.

“The council has deliberated. You two are going to stay here while you convalesce. Wow, I don’t think I have ever used that word before. Anyway, you’re staying here. Now that you two are all hunky dory—that was  _not_  a mention of Cisco’s muscles, not that they’re not really nice—we think it’s in your best interest to stay here. That way, I can make sure that you don’t go all strong, independent vigilante on us like  _someone_ did last night. You were lucky,” she says to Cisco with narrowed eyes. “But anyway, get up.” She hands them each a notepad. “Barry and Sara will pack you some bags from your apartments. No, you can’t go yourselves. I already asked Caitlin, and she says it’s too much lifting. So make a list, and Barry will drop everything by soon.”

Laurel salutes. “Ma’am yes ma’am.”

“Damn straight. I’ll make breakfast. And by ‘make breakfast,’ I mean go grab some of whatever Oliver is cooking and bring it back up here.”

“Thanks,” Cisco says, and she nods before tapping her way out of the room. “Does she ever wear flats?”

“Sometimes. Only if they have pandas on them,” Laurel says with a smile as she starts making her list. By the time Felicity is back upstairs with two plates of French toast, she and Cisco are both finished with their lists and have changed into clean clothing. Felicity takes the lists, tells them to be good, and retreats downstairs.

“She’s kind of scary,” Cisco remarks.

“She’s a Lance. It’s required.”

After breakfast, they busy themselves with board games—mainly Battleship—until Barry arrives with two duffel bags slung across his shoulders. He flashes into one of the bedrooms and returns empty-handed.

“Don’t move those,” he says. “I’m serious. Caitlin might be the doctor, but I know wounds, too, and split surgical scars are gross. I’ll be right back.”

Laurel shrugs. “I-5,” she says to Cisco with an evil grin.

He groans. “You sunk my battleship.  _Again._ How are you so good at this?”

“How are you so bad at hiding your ships?”

A breeze fills the room and the fridge door slams shut. Barry reappears on the kitchen island. “If you get hungry, check the fridge. There’s some food in there for easy meals,” he tells them.

“Thanks, Barry.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Anything for you two,” he tells them with a smile before he darts away.

“He really means that,” Laurel notices.

“He does. That’s part of what makes him my best friend.”

They finish their game—Laurel the obvious winner—before they start to yawn.

“Is it really lame that I just want a nap right now?

“If by lame you mean totally awesome, then yeah,” Cisco tells her with a smile. He slowly gets to his feet before helping her up.

 They shuffle like a pair of old folks into the bedroom, giving half-hearted looks at the duffel bags before they shake their heads and crawl into bed fully-clothed. Their bodies come together like magnets in the middle of the bed. As her body soaks in Cisco’s warmth and comfort, she realizes that she doesn’t ever want to fall asleep any other way than this.

* * *

 

They wake up lazily, groaning and rolling over multiple times before Laurel’s thirst prompts her to sit up.

“So thirsty,” she groans. “Or I would never leave.”

He smiles sleepily up at her. “Then don’t. I’ll get us some drinks. Stay here.”

She kisses him gently, watching as he pads out of the room. She rolls out of the bed, but only to retrieve some pajamas from her duffel. The sweatpants she is wearing are too hot with Cisco’s added heat. She grins as she pulls out his t-shirt and boxers and quickly changes into them before crawling back into the warm comfort of the bed.  _I am never leaving_. When she hears his laughter, however, her curiosity overpowers her and she creeps into the kitchen, where he is standing in front of the open refrigerator door.

She rests her chin on his shoulder. “What is it?”

“Look.” He points to the fridge, which is absolutely  _covered_  in disposable casserole dishes tented with foil that has been scribbled on in permanent marker.

“Lasagna,” he reads. “375 for 45 minutes. Don’t overcook it while you’re banging or something. Roy.”

Laurel chuckles against his shoulder, breathing in his cinnamon scent. “Wow.”

“I see three from Roy, two from Sara and Nyssa, two from Oliver, and Thea has given us enough eclairs to last a good while.”

“Don’t forget Dad’s red velvet cake,” Laurel tells him, nodding to the masterpiece on the counter. She would recognize that cake plate anywhere. “The drinks?”

“Right,” he says, pulling two sodas out of the fridge and leading her back to bed. She is just about to crawl into bed when she looks up to see him staring at her.

“You’re wearing them,” he says, staring at the tiger boxers.

“And your shirt,” she reminds him. “And nothing else.”

He groans. “Caitlin said—”

“I don’t want to talk about Caitlin right now, Cisco.”

She crawls into bed with him, peeling off his shirt and throwing it across the room. She trails kisses down his neck and chest while he comes up with reasons why she should be resting.

“You’re still healing.”

“So are you,” she says, teasing at the edge of his waistband with her fingers. “Endorphins are medicinal.”

“You’re offering me the forbidden fruit, but I am not biting.”

She unzips his pants. “Not even a taste?”

After, they don’t collapse into a pile of heaving, post-coital exhaustion like the romance novels always depict. There are no burning bedroom eyes, and neither of them is feeling up to christening every inch of the Perch in a blaze of glorious passion. Their activities were already pushing the boundaries of their sore bodies. Instead they enjoy comfort, euphoria’s milder and sweeter cousin. Laurel rests her cheek against his chest, careful not to put too much pressure on his lungs as she listens to the thrum of his heartbeat. She starts laughing.

“What?”

“I’m still thirsty.”

* * *

 

It takes two months and some suit modifications before Laurel is able to return to her night job. It’s made worse by the fact that Cisco is happily fighting criminals by week four, but Laurel tries to take it in stride and uses her inactivity as a way to spend more time with Felicity, listening in on the coms while Vibe and the rest of the crew go on missions. She was surprised how much she liked it the first time, and waiting months isn’t all bad despite how frustrated it makes her.

Unfortunately, her day job is less than strenuous, and she and Cisco are both back to work less than three weeks after the explosion. They shuffle slowly into Tempest together, arm in arm, and are met with a round of applause, a nice cake, and way too much work to do. When the last crumb of cake is eaten and the other employees have dispersed, Laurel and Cisco are left in the hallway with the woman they refer to as the D.I.P or the Dragon Lady, depending on the day.

“I’m so glad to hear that you two have patched things up. It’s so nice to see you with someone more suited for your current status. You two seem surprisingly happy.”

_Some things never change_. Laurel smiles tightly. “Of course. Thank you, Moira.”

“Yes,” Cisco adds. “How delightful to find that we middle-class peons can find love, too,” he says with the most sarcastic smile he can manage.

They turn as one and walk down the hall towards their offices.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” she whispers, her shoulders shaking in silent laughter.

“What’s she going to do, fire us? What a shame. We clearly don’t have any other skills we could use to maintain our meager living.” He reaches into his pocket. “Lollipop?”

She takes it just as they reach the doors to their offices. “Grape. My favorite.”

“I know. Why do you think I eat them all the time?” He winks and produces another one from his pocket.

Laurel leans in to kiss him on the cheek. “Have a good day at work, Muffin.”

“With this view, how could I not? Back to work, Honeybun.” He presses a kiss to her forehead and retreats into his office as Laurel does the same.

Neither of them closes their doors; what is lost in productivity is made up in employee satisfaction. 


End file.
